


The Human Condition

by foulrescent



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel 616
Genre: BAMF!Bucky, Banter, Bucky thinks everyone's attractive, Concentration Camps, Emotional!Bucky, Established Relationship, Gambling, M/M, Spies, Violence, War Era, World War II, but he's only got eyes for one
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-14
Updated: 2016-07-22
Packaged: 2018-07-24 01:33:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 23,271
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7488198
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/foulrescent/pseuds/foulrescent
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bucky, a ruthless soldier questioning mortality, crosses the German border with an American spy with a secret, a Frenchman with a love for explosions, a sour Englishman and another fellow American that's faithful to a cockroach, to rescue an agent of the OSS' that's fallen into Hydra's hands. It doesn't go well for him, but there's always Steve in the end.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Without Your Dear Captain

**Author's Note:**

> I wanted to write 2k of Bucky in WW2 and this happened. I feel like this is some huge prequel to something future-based that I've never written because of the amount of meaningless foreshadowing.  
> WARNINGS: Themes of torture. The Holocaust is addressed in vague detail. Sexual assault is MENTIONED, but it has nothing to do with the plot.  
> This is edited by me, myself and I, so if there are mistakes it's because i was lazy. If there are mistakes in the sex scene it's because if i read it one more time i would've deleted the entire thing. If any French/German translations are incorrect, I'm sorry. All mistakes are my own.  
> Read this with some camomile tea and enjoy, aşklarım
> 
> (This has been reposted)

They’re settling alongside Lake Como, in the North of Italy, and Bucky’s soaking his coat in the small, slender creak that’s broken off from the main body of water. He scratches his breast pocket with a sharp rock, trying to break down the bloody particles that are itched into the heavy fabric. It’s dark and barely visible to others but it’s visible to _him_. He deems his trusted coat permanently stained when the bloodstain doesn’t begin to fade away. He exhales harshly through his nose, pissed off, because he didn’t ask a sobbing, surrendering Hydra soldier to bleed all over him while he decided that being a Nazi was a bad idea right before he bled to Hell.

“Look at you,” Steve says from behind, sounding proud, “Doing your own laundry. Thought the only thing you could do was shine shoes.”

“Oh, you _know_ that I can do other things,” Bucky counters and he looks up with a smile that he knows that’s cheeky and hearted, because the corners of his eyes sting with how much his cheeks are risen, but the movement pulls down when he sees that Steve’s in his Captain America get up. It’s all bright blue and red lines along his hard, big body. His chest looking larger with the bulletproof vest fit underneath the uniform, the vest that Bucky knows is there. He looks handsome, as usual, but the generic, forest green soldier get up does even more wonders than the American flag.

“Oh,” Bucky blinks, “I didn’t know there was a mission. What am I gonna wear? The coat’s soaking.”

Steve steps onto a sturdy rock near the one that Bucky has settled on. He looks down at Bucky, face still bare due to the absence of his helmet and wings. He looks wary. “Buck. It’s just going to be me, Gabe and Dum Dum for this one. Just outside Milan. I told Phillips that I wanted you there, but…” Steve shrugs, like he didn’t probably put on a fight against the Colonel, “He said that there’s no need for a sniper.”

But Bucky’s not only a sniper. He’s an attack dog. He slits the throats of the snoozing enemy, and cracks the skulls that are hidden underneath the helmets of Hydra’s soldiers so that Captain America can parade through factories without threatening big guns trained onto him. Bucky knows: Steve can do that himself, he can just pierce the shield into spines and throw enemy soldiers off high roofs, but Captain America cannot. In this day of age, the vast number of cameras is unknown, and they can’t catch Captain America dripping in blood. Schmidt would use Hitler’s method of film and create doubt within the allies. My, my, isn’t Captain America a nasty person, they’ll taunt if he was caught doing a dirty job. Very nasty indeed! The people will cry.

So, Milan must be easy. In quick and out quicker. It’s to be expected of Milan, the city that’s settling. Steve wouldn’t need someone to bathe in blood for him. Not that he knows that there are those, that there’s Bucky, who risk drowning for him and Captain America. Which is essentially the same thing, the same living, breathing being, but Steve Rogers is the only being rumbling in this heart.

Bucky realizes that he’s been staring too intently at the line of Steve’s jaw and moves his gaze further up, past Steve’s crooked nose and to those eyes, shimmering with the reflection of the calm stream below both their feet. This angle isn’t new. This way of looking up at Steve isn’t new, but it constantly severs Bucky incapable of words. And it seems that Steve needs words. Reassurance.

“This won’t be your first gig without me,” he teases, falling into an easy laugh.

“You were there for the first one. Well, if you weren’t there that woulda been worrying, because it was sorta your rescue mission.

Bucky bites the inside of his right cheek, digs his teeth into the gum, to stop himself from huffing out a smile. He whips Steve’s shins with the heavy weight of his wet coat, but Steve doesn’t even waver. “Run me through the mission.”

“Small underground base on the outskirts of the city. Peggy’s been running surveillance, which explains where she’s been. It’s the usual deal, but smaller. Mostly scientists, 7 guards.” Steve shrugs. “Make arrests. Destroy the research.”

In quick and out quicker, just like Bucky predicted. He nods. He’s satisfied that Phillips has made the right decision about only sending a few people. The mission probably won’t even need Steve’s muscle, only the red, white and blue, which he’s a little peeved at, but – everything’s contained

“Easy peasy,” Steve adds.

“Easy as apple pie,” Bucky confirms.

Steve disappears from his blindside and transforms into the warm palm on his right shoulder and the fingers loosely fitting in his hair. They’re facing away from the barracks, so it must look like Steve’s just standing behind Bucky, like the Captain should be. Steve smells fresh, an odd scent in the middle of war. Bucky leans his head back on Steve’s strong and sturdy thigh, letting out a breath that should be shattered, sounding gasped. That’s how his chest feels. Tight, like he should be taking short gasps as breaths.

Steve’s fingers softly press Bucky’s eyelids closed. “Get some sleep when I’m gone.”

“OK,” Bucky promises, but they both know it won’t be fulfilled. He can hardly get any shuteye because all he sees are circled glasses and all he hears is Sergeant Barnes, this will only sting and all he feels is a million needles puncturing each vein and infecting each cell. Whenever Steve asks to tell him why he can’t sleep, he pretends to be. He can’t let that information curse Steve’s ears. He can’t let Steve know that he knows that it didn’t hurt _a little_.

He reaches up and wraps Steve’s wrist with his hand, gripping light. He presses against the jut of the bone with his thumb. He lets go

“I best be off,” Steve says softly.

Bucky breathes in heavily through his nose and opens his eyes, the brightness of the sky, the shine bouncing up from both the rocks and pebbles force him to blink a dozen times in retaliation. He looks up over his shoulder, cheek brushing against Steve’s hand that’s resting there, and whispers, “Be safe, would you. Be reasonable.”

“When am I not?”

Bucky snorts, covering the shyness at being so soft. “Don’t even get me started.”

“Oh, do enlighten me, Bucky.”

“Don’t you have somewhere to be? You don’t have time to listen to a damn list that’ll go on for weeks.”

They continue to bicker, but Steve abruptly puts a stop to it by brushing Bucky’s hair back and then leaving with a hushed, “See you tomorrow.” His footsteps crush against the orange leaves that have itched their way into the creases between the rounded stones.

Bucky watches as Steve heads through the trees, eyes lingering on the way his hips move and his feet make precise steps into flat spots of ground, so he won’t slip. Bucky decides to get up, then, and he slings the heavy, wet coat in the crease of his elbow of his raised arm and follows Steve’s footing on the ground. He hangs his coat over a low branch, close enough to the clearing where the camp’s set up.

He watches as Steve hoists himself in the backseat of a truck. Dugan hits the side of the vehicle with an arm hanging from the window. With one last look at the descending truck, Bucky heads towards the mess hall in order to find someone that he can cause trouble with.

 

 

 

 

“Fuck you, Barnes,” Morita swears, whilst Dernier hits the makeshift table with a fist and yells in his native tongue. They both refuse to pass over their cigarettes.

Monty reaches out with several bunched up together. “I simply need double of everything you’ve won these years as compensation for when we catch you cheating.”

“I’m just lucky.” Bucky winks.

“Lucky Bucky,” Dernier moans, “quel salaud! Va te faire enculer!”

Bucky grins. “I love you."

“Lucky Bucky says whilst knowing French,” Morita commentates.

They play more rounds until Dernier threatens to set the cards on fire, which won’t end well for anybody. The last time Dernier was in charge of the fire pit several tents burnt down until they were simmering particles of ash. The flames had attracted Hydra, giving them their stationary hiding spot away. For Dernier’s efforts Howard had made him a flame gun, which was obviously confiscated by Steve, because even though Dernier is a genius at bomb placements, he’s really shit at dancing with flames.

Phillips then pops his head between the tent’s flaps. “Barnes,” he orders, “Get to HQ by the hour. That’s in 4 minutes.” Then he disappears.

Bucky frowns. “But I haven’t done anything.”

Morita shrugs. Dernier clicks his tongue and begins to distribute the cards to only three people, effectively starting a new round without Bucky. He almost looks relieved that Bucky’s probably going to get in trouble with whatever Phillips is accusing him of this time. Last time Bucky was called into the main tent he got interrogated about the pigs roaming the mess hall, which, fine, was him and Dugan, but Dugan never got called up.

Bucky pouts, looking at Monty, “You guys haven’t done anythin’ that I don’t know about, right?”

“Well,” Monty hums, “Dum Dum was talking about throwing Colonel Phillips into the water, but… if that’d happened it would have been very clear that it wasn’t you.” He pauses. “Unless word’s already gotten around and you’re being labeled as the mastermind.”

“Word hasn’t gotten to me so I doubt it would’ve gotten to Phillips. Do the cots float? When he’s sleeping we should carry it out to the lake,” Bucky suggests while making his way out the tent.

He hears Morita laugh, “I don’t know how he managed to not kill little Steve with all those ideas.”

Or the alternative: I don’t know how he managed not killing himself every time he thought Steve was too weak.

 

 

 

 

It must be a little past 3 in the afternoon when he gets to the main tent, kicking spare pebbles ahead of him while weeding through the integrate set up of camp. It feels like 8 in the evening, the time that Bucky usually settles into his own cot – or the space that he cushions between his own and Steve’s cot just to grab onto Steve’s hand hanging down the side – when they’ve had a free day in a new camp that’s nowhere near music or a ballroom or liquor that doesn’t work, but he drinks anyway. Maybe he just wishes that it were later so that Steve would come back sooner. But the middle of the day hasn’t yet been reached.

“Late.” Phillips is unimpressed. “Again.”

The tent only contains three people: Bucky, Phillips and another man. The man’s younger, maybe the same age as Bucky. Dark eyes and darker hair. He looks smart, but everyone does in forest green or, God forbid, the murky brown dress uniform. He’s standing a couple of steps away from Phillips, arms crossed with impressive shoulders. He’s unfairly pretty. Bucky contains his smirk and relaxes into a smile instead.

“I was just collecting my winnings, sir.”

Phillips then looks a little amused, eyes glimmering for just a moment. “Do I have to hide all the matches?”

“Probably not,” Bucky advises after they both hear Dernier cheering from the opposite end of the camp.

“Good for him,” Phillip blandly says, then slips into his role as the Colonel, clearing his throat. He gestures towards the man. “Barnes, this is Agent Thomas Raymond of the OSS. I trust that you’ve heard of the OSS.”

“Yeah, all the spooks.”

Phillips sighs. “Raymond, this is Sergeant James Barnes.”

“Of the SSR,” Bucky mumbles under his breath, because it sounds well fancy with that. He reaches out with his hand. When Agent Thomas Raymond of the OSS’ palm presses against Bucky’s, he gives the agent a wink. “Call me Bucky. Everyone else does except Marge and the Colonel.”

The agent blushes, just a little, and speaks like he’s from the Westside. “If we’re on nickname basis, then please call me ‘Toro’.”

“Done and dusted, Toro.”

Phillips rolls his eyes. “You know what I also want to be done and dusted? This mission I’m about to make you in charge of, Barnes.”

Bucky stands more alert, hands tucked behind his back. “Shouldn’t Steve…”

“Jesus Christ, you both are worse than the other. While Captain Rogers is occupied I’m assigning you on a mission, Barnes,” Phillips pauses. He briefly looks at Toro. “The OSS’ last exchange with undercover Agent Sabuki included the phrase ‘Hydra’, which instantly got us involved. The one before that was a coded message that read: _they’re sending me to Auschernberg. They know_.” Phillips looks up from the file on the desk. The moody lighting in the tent just makes it much more dramatic. Bucky would’ve snorted if this was a meeting about finding who stuck Phillips’ socks in mud. “Without liberating Sabuki the OSS’ entire operation will be at risk. And her life.”

Taking in the information, Bucky then asks, “What would Hydra want with her? She won’t have anything of use to Hydra. They’ve branched out from the regime. The O-Double-S don’t deal with Hydra. Do you, Toro?”

“If we come across it we hand the information straight to the SSR,” Toro answers, “but, no, we generally infiltrate the Axis without laser guns.”

“I like you,” he drawls, making sure to give Toro an appreciative glance. His eyes linger on the un-spy like blush that’s diluted across Toro’s high cheekbone. Without looking away, Bucky addresses Phillips, “They taking Sabuki to a HYDRA base? With all due respect,” he manages to turn to Phillips, “shouldn’t Steve be there front and centre?”

Phillips looks ready to slam his own head on his desk, which wouldn’t be the first time. “With all due respect?” He parrots, exasperated, “Rogers isn’t needed for this operation. Auschernberg isn’t a Hydra base. It’s a prisoner camp. This mission is to be _discrete_. Which a flag is not. And why do you think I sent one of the loudest of your Howlers to Milan? I sure wasn’t letting him be an option for you to send deep into enemy territory.”

“Contrary to the name, he’s not that dumb. He would’ve handled this mission just fine, sir.”

“Barnes, Dugan mooned a princess in London.”

“He had a few drinks and Marge—“

“—suggested it. Yes, Barnes, I’ve heard the allegation against Carter. And I’m telling her that you called her ‘Marge’ again.” The corners of Phillips’ lips quirk and then he slips back into the Colonel scowl. “Barnes, you’re to choose two others and Raymond to make up your covert team.” He checks his watch. “Raymond will fill you in on the rest of the details. Barnes, take the usual kit. Gentlemen, I wish to see you all and Agent Sabuki intact in the barracks by twelve hundred hours tomorrow. If you’ll excuse me, I’m late to a meeting with Stark.”

Bucky feels his mood spike at that. “Howard’s here?” Whenever they’re going on missions, Howard – if he’s around – likes to pretend to sob like the many dames on the train platform and claw at Bucky’s hands and chest, pretending to beg for him not to go. It’s a little game of theirs.

“Sicily.”

“Safe travels, sir,” Toro says.

Phillips nods his thanks and then he’s off, grumbling – probably about Howard and his love for going on vacation even as they’re in the middle of war. Bucky waves him off. He clasps his hands together and looks at Toro, who’s looking right back at him, and says, “You wanna meet the Howlies?”

 

 

 

 

“I’m sorry, Dernier,” Bucky apologizes, making sure to pout real big, “It’s a small mission. There’s no need for exquisite explosions this time.”

Then he realizes that it’s similar to the excuse Steve gave him. _There’s no need for a sniper_. He scowls and tries to think of what other excuse Phillips would’ve told him. There’s always a need for a sniper, for someone to be on another’s six. There’s always a threat that only someone high up can see. A threat that’s either one from up above or below. But then the mission in Milan’s easy. It didn’t need Steve there in the first place. That’s what Bucky should be disgruntled at. He jerks his head back to the extended, customized-by-Howard stretch of the Willy, indicating for Dernier to climb in.

Dernier claps in delight and settles into the seat on the left when Monty and Morita shuffle over.

The automobile starts up with a groan and a slur. Morita cheers when Bucky accelerates down the path that was already made on the way in to set up the camp in the secluded area.

“Are you sure this is a good idea?” Monty asks, sounding bitten.

“Bringing Frenchie?” Morita sounds astounded.

“No,” Monty tensely answers like he’s holding something back, “Letting Sarge drive.” He’s definitely holding down his stomach, then.

Bucky looks over his shoulder, mouth wide open in mock shock. “How very dare you? I thought Englishmen were supposed to be so polite.”

He feels the automobile cruising a little too much to the left and before he can look back to the front and veer them in the right direction, the steering wheel turns on it’s own. Bucky snaps back, startled, only to see Toro’s arm outstretched in front of him.

He grins. “Thank you, pal. Here.” He steadies the wheel with one hand and digs into his shirt pocket with the other. He fishes out his cigarettes, but they tumble all over the console when he hits a bump in the road. A few hands from the back grapple between the seats, snatching them up. “Hey!” Bucky shouts, slapping them, “I’ll be generous! Only one snipe!” Most of them still disappear – never mind, he’ll win them back in another game.

He notices that Toro’s not grabbing one. “Help yourself. I was gonna get one out for you before they all jumped out.”

“Oh.” Toro reaches out. “Thanks, Bucky.” He just holds it in his hand.

“Any of you boys gotta lighter?” Bucky asks, smacking the back of his seat to get the others attention. “Mine’s busted. Howard took it. Whatever.”

“You lost it,” Monty accuses, arm outstretched with a lighter.

“Shut up.”

“Thank you.” Toro carefully takes it.

Bucky tucks a cigarette between his lips and focuses on the road, forcing himself to be patient for the lighter. The windows are all open, because there’s an insurance of no gunfire while they’re heading through Switzerland to North Germany. Bucky sharply avoids a sharp rock. He enjoys the fresh, mountainous air rushing in and blowing out the smoke. Maybe he won’t light his smoke after all, just have it hanging in the corner of his mouth like he would’ve back at home in the time after he noticed that the cure for asthma was doing so much worse than any better.

Something red sizzles in the corner of his eye. He thinks that it’s coming from the back, so he goes to turn to grumble, you really want me to crash so you can prove that I can’t drive, huh, but then he sees a flashy red laser completely melt through the glove box. “What the fuck,” he yells and blames the Nazis and then notices.

Someone in the back starts shooting up to the roof, a little too trigger-happy. “Stop, stop, fucking stop!” Bucky shouts.

“Que se passe-t-il?”

“Fucking chuck it out the window!”

Bucky punches in the space of air that Toro’s hands are fumbling over the flaming, combusted device and then leans over to inspect that the gadget’s gone. The heat in that space seems far hotter than it should be. As he’s leaning, the wheel turns with him, and a silence abruptly swallows everything in the automobile when it slams into a large tree trunk. Bucky jerks forward. He attempts to press Toro back to the seat by stretching his arm between the seats to stop Morita from flying through the windshield and palms Toro’s chest, feels a heart thumping incredibly fast.

Monty pompously clears his throat. “You know, it _is_ a very polite thing to point out that—“

“What the hell was that? Why did my cigarette just try and kill us?” Toro asks, outraged. His mouth’s agape, his bottom lip is bleeding right in the plumpest part – like he bit it. Other than that he looks unscathed, just wide-eyed and terribly sorry.

“Courtesy of Howard Stark…” Morita singsongs.

Bucky almost feels like laughing, sitting here with steam coming from the mouths of his favourite men and from the jutted front of the automobile. “Cigarette laser,” he explains, “’m so sorry. You’re face coulda been fried off. Jesus Christ,” he giggles, he pulls back his arm and rubs his face, hiding his smile, “Oh, fuck.”

“Espèce d'idiot!”

“I know, buddy.” Bucky’s about to choke. He can’t hold this in. God, he needs to tell Steve.

Toro lets out a half-hearted laugh, mostly still shocked. “How come I’m an actual spy and I don’t have a… _cigarette laser_?”

“You don’t have a Howard Stark,” Morita gruffly answers.

“Love that sunavabitch,” Bucky fondly says. The stench of smoke is clearer and he notices a cigarette being held out to him. He takes it between two fingers, sniffles, “Thanks, Frenchie.” He puts the tip of it in his mouth. The other, unlit, must’ve fallen out in the minor crash.

“Now let Fresno drive,” Dernier orders, in perfect English.

Bucky gets out, but makes sure that what’s left of his fallen goods are tucked back into his pockets. He gives Toro a sheepish smile, along with an innocent expression. He drawls, “Welcome to the SSR. We’re idiots, but we’ll get the agent back.”

 

 

 

 

Bucky wonders what Steve’s doing right now. Maybe he’s punching through a paper-thin wall, or maybe he’s already finished up and he’s doing some rounds with the general public, posing for photos with baby vomit spilling on to him and dainty hands pressing against a pectoral, maybe even his ass.

“Is that a person?” Morita’s asking from the driver’s seat, “Is he… he’s holdin’ a fucking gun. Should I run him over? I’m runnin’ him over.” The trees whiz by blurrier.

“No!” Toro objects, “It’s just a Swiss man. He won’t fire.”

“Ease the speed to let ‘im know we’re friendly,” Bucky orders and watches the tree trunks get more defined. He spots an owl burrowing in one.

Monty mumbles, “He’s signally for us to stop, Sarge.”

Bucky leans over Dernier, who got moved to the middle seat, and squints to see the armed figure waving to the side of the road. The guy’s got a huge rifle and a green hat, but his posture’s slouched and his stance is sloppy – he’s got one hip cocked. Neither hand is on the rifle, it’s just hanging down a strap from his neck and swinging against the cocked hip. Either he doesn’t think they’re a threat or he’s slack.

“It’s just a copper. Pull over. Put on your smiles, boys.”

Toro moves to face Bucky, his nose almost hitting the edge of Bucky’s jaw. Without moving away, Toro hesitatingly says, “If you don’t mind, I’ll take care of him. Just… no French or American.” At the confounded silence, he adds, “Trust me on this.”

Bucky stares at the small quiver of Toro’s reddened lips and then at the dark, brown eyes that are equal to the colour of Steve’s pupils, but then how are Toro’s pupils still _darker_? He leans back against his seat. “Alright. Go for it.”

They pull over. Toro rolls down the window, just like Bucky would’ve done, but he doesn’t hang an arm out the window, stupidly smile and drawl, “Evening, officer.” Instead he begins to talk in a pish-posh English accent that challenges Monty’s, as it sounds even more authentic than the English-born.

“Good evening, sir.”

Monty gasps.

The officer gazes into the trunk. “Evening. Where are we heading?”

Bucky blinks, startled at the accent. Zola was Swiss. He looks out the window closest to him, opposite the officer. There’s a large expanse of mountainous ranges to their side. It might be the Alps. He grips his left wrist. It aches all of a sudden. There’s a sizzle of electricity running up his arm when he wriggles his fingers.

“Bern, to have a word with the Americans there.”

“Stupid Americans,” the officer huffs, “Put them in place.”

“They are bloody imbeciles!”

Monty hums in agreement, then bids to the officer, “Have a very good day, sir!” This effectively ends the exchange.

The officer nods affirmative and sends them on their way with a cheery yell and a slap at the side. It rocks the Willy. He didn’t even realize that Bern was to the West and that they were heading in the wrong direction.

“A half-pissed effort,” Monty regards Toro’s act as.

“You’ve got a little competition ‘ere, Falsworth,” Morita teases.

Dernier agrees with Morita.

“You’re absolutely kidding,” Monty swears and a hand pokes at Bucky’s shoulder, “Sarge, I’m the only lovely lass in your life, right? The most prettiest.”

Bucky blinks, relaxes. He slouches into the touch and Dernier knocks their knees together, grins wildly at him. Bucky clears his throat, the sick in his stomach adding to the sick that’s been building up ever since he set foot on the transports. “Dunno. Your whispers in my ear sound real sweet, I’d know, but I think his might sound a little sweeter, sugar.” He mouths, I’m kidding, when Monty threatens to jump out and roll along the road with the force he’s thrown with.

After it’s settled down, and Monty decides to brood in jealousy, Bucky wonders, “How’d you know that he’d hate Americans?” He wipes sweat of the top of his brows, flattening the little hairs that Steve likes to crisply shape in the drawings done back at home.

“They’re a bit agitated about us. We took out one of their towns; told them it was a mistake. Not sure if it was because the town was home to Nazi factories… anyway, that happened. The authorities still allow the OSS to stay in Bern, but they’re a little touchy about airspace and travelling on land to anywhere but Italy. That guy woulda shot out our tires if I asked if he was rationed."

Bucky lets out a guffaw, “I used that once on a dame and she grabbed my face, made sure that her ring dung real nice into my cheek. _Can you tell if I’m rationed now?_ She said. God, she was real mean.” But Steve’s meaner. And the USA’s just real dodgy, and Steve basically spreads the warped values of the damn country.

“Could we disregard that horrid line that’s meant to charm ladies and focus on the fact that America is making grave mistakes on neutral, friendly soil?” Monty intervenes.

“It’s not _us_ ,” Morita grunts, “It’s the old guys. It’s guys worse than Phillips. It’s the guys that probably send the soldier that jokingly calls him pops or granddad on a suicide mission outta spite. It’s not us. We’re just soldiers. We just follow orders.”

An uneasy silence falls among them. Bucky bites at the side of his lip, unsure of what to say to that. They are soldiers. They do follow orders and more often than not they can’t do anything about it. Sure, there are ones like Steve, but everyone else isn’t like that. Everyone else doesn’t dare to act on the courage that’s there behind everything else, that’s hidden under all the grime and selfishness, and instead they follow orders and shoot when they need to shoot. They act when they need to and they risk their lives when the ones in front of them sprint towards the assaults striking their kneecaps and face and chest. They have heavy, thumping hearts that are covered in rough skin that needs soft hands to press against it.

Bucky’s not like that anymore, he likes to think, but he’s been scared ever since he saw Steve. The soft hands should’ve scraped away all the dirt, but those hands aren’t soft anymore. The skin above Bucky’s heart and the supple palms and smooth fingers that Steve had are now rough with war. Bucky doesn’t know if they’ll ever go home. He doesn’t know if Captain America is forever. He probably wouldn’t be around long enough to find out.

He gulps and looks out the window. The sun’s lower than it was when they set out and they should be crossing over the German border. He just hopes that there’s no trouble in forms of border patrolling Nazis.

 

 

 

“When we get back I’ll convince Dum Dum to swim in the lake and when he leaves his pants by the water I need ya to search through his pockets – while I distract him – for the betting poll, ‘cause I think he put in my bet wrong just so I can’t win. I need to double check,” Morita’s saying quietly.

“Why don’t you just ask him? That sounds rather outrageous.” Monty snorts.

“I did,” Morita defends, raising his voice, “but I think his pants are on fire.”

“Set them on… fire,” Dernier suggests, doing that thing were he shrugs with his mouth.

“But then the betting poll will burn. And his legs.”

Bucky leans forward. “What are we betting on?”

“Oh, Sarge… just who’s _cockroach_ will win the race tomorrow night. I put my money on this new guy’s one, but I think Dum Dum changed it because he knows that the new guy’s ‘roach will win. Win tomorrow.”

Bucky knits his eyebrows together, blinking quickly several times to liven up his brain to clean up what Morita’s spilling. “You have a lot of faith in an insect."

Morita shrugs. “I sense potential and a bigger chocolate ration.”

Sweeping his hair out of his forehead, Bucky sighs, “Do you really want a repeat of last time?”

The last time that the bets placed consisted of chocolate and sweets there was a riot in HQ. They’d been in London at the time, so they all received double the ration that they’d normally get. They were in mess, finally taking a break from the bar. Truthfully, Bucky had been hanging around Howard’s lab waiting for Steve until he spotted Gabe and Monty down the hall. He ditched being Howard’s assistant – all he’d been doing was dusting debris off Howard’s forehead every time there was a minor explosion – and headed towards mess with the pair. The three of them, Gabe, Monty and Bucky, just settled onto their usual table. Bucky was eyeing the doors for Steve to show up when the sirens sounded.

They all rounded up in the air-shelter underneath the old building, listening to the reoccurring wailing and not yet feeling the rumble of the second layer of Earth. Then Dum Dum showed up, bored. He found several cockroaches in a large wooden wardrobe full of fur coats. Instead of playing dress-up with the luscious coats, he gathered up the creatures and lined them up for race. With no cigarettes or money on anyone’s body, they all bet with chocolate.

Dum Dum somehow won all of the chocolate. He scammed everyone. The brawl in the shelter caused more tremors than the bombs that fell on the East. Dugan busted his nose. Phillips started ranting on about how this ruins the SSR’s credibility and blamed Bucky even though he had nothing to do with it. Everyone was gloomy afterwards. The lesson was to never bet on anything with your chocolate ration, especially on stupid things.

The chocolate ended up in the hands of British children. Then Captain America got praised for handing out chocolate, even though it was Gabe and Morita that spent their afternoon in the bombed East London distributing the sweets. Another lesson re-learnt.

“Yeah, but the Colonel’s not gonna find out this time.”

“Whatever.” Bucky blows a long strand of hair out of the corner of his eye. “It’s your funeral without chocolate appetizers.”

“If I win I’ll share one block,” Monty promises.

“Eh,” Dernier supplies, like he’s completely lost in the conversation

Everyone turns to the passenger seat. Toro sits up straighter, lamely says, “Cockroach racing is just gross. Don’t you think?”

“One of ‘em could probably survive those bombs that Stark tests out on the beach,” Morita sniffles, “It is a little gross.

“They’re repugnant,” Monty agrees

“Not worth the chocolate, is it, boys?” Bucky checks.

Morita hums, uncommitted. “This race is.”

 

 

 

 

They cross the border without a hitch and drive carefully around the perimeters of the POW camp that Agent Sabuki is getting sent to by Hydra. They set up along side the muddy, over used road that heads towards Auschernberg. It’s the only road that heads towards the camp, they made sure of it.

They drive through a bunch of thin trunked trees and situate the Jeep into the dark forest. The evergreens are still young, so the branches are easy to snap to bunch them up on the bonnet to disguise themselves in the higher evergreens that tower around them.

Bucky shifts through the gear and throws Morita one of the quarters. “Don’t lose it or Howard’ll give us Hell.”

“Not my fault he makes ‘em so small,” Morita grumbles, picking it off the ground from where he failed to catch it.

Luckily it hasn’t hit nightfall yet, so every detail’s still visible on the twig-scattered floor. Bucky defends Howard. “I think that a walkie-talkie this size is an amazing innovation for the technological advancement. Howard’s even talking ‘bout making a coat that generates actual heat by using some sort of power source.”

“It’s been done,” Morita counters, “It’s called a coat and it contains the heat that your heart pumps out."

Bucky scowls. “You know what I mean.”

“Someday one of that man’s cock-eyed inventions will kill him,” Monty advises.

Dernier murmurs.

“Alright!” Bucky takes charge. “Fall in, Commandos. Mission objective is to retrieve Sabuki unscathed. I need barbed wire to be run across the road a mile North from this site. Morita, Falsworth – you two will contact me with the quarter once the trucks passed the spikes. Tail the truck. Agent Raymond and I will be on the South. We’ll take out the driver. You guys take out the guards that might be lurking in the back. No lights at this point. Dernier… you’re our getaway driver. Absolutely no explosions.”

“Sarge, what happens if there’s another trunk?”

“Same drill goes. It’s just a double assault. We’ve done whole factories before, pals.”

“What’s the drill if there are prisoners other than the Agent?”

Bucky clicks his tongue. “We’ll carry as many as we can in the Willy, but we’ll give the left over’s a rendezvous and send in reinforcements. Sound good?” The men all nod. “Great. Get to it.” As he looks down to fumble for his rifle strap, he hears a questionable camera shutter go off. He startles. “What?”

Morita’s holding silver pen, one of Howard’s mind-boggling inventions (a camera that small, it’s horrendous). “Documenting your first time being all commandeering for Captain Rogers, Sarge. Your hair looks nice in this light. Carter will add it in her scrapbook, the one she pretends not to have.”

“It’s my first time? What the hell was I doing in Monaghan then?” He rolls his eyes, too fond to be annoyed.

“In the trees,” Monty answers, thoughtful. He catches the look on Bucky’s face. “Where you should’ve been, Sergeant Barnes.”

Bucky raises his brows, gets some more ammo and slips it into one of the thigh pockets that he stitched himself on his cargo pants, and then shuts the case that holds all the gear. He glances up to see if the others are getting sorted, and he’s pleased to see that they are. He slings the rifle Howard custom made for him over his shoulder. The scope hits the middle of his shoulder blades and the head nudges against his lower back. He looks to the side to catch Toro staring right at him.

He smiles at the agent. “Let’s get prancin’, Toto.”

“I’ve heard that before.”

Before Bucky dwells into a conversation with Toro, maybe even ask _why are you even here, Spy Boy_ , he addresses Dernier, “No bombs.”

“Très bien,” Dernier replies both shortly and grumpily.

Both Morita and Monty salute Bucky, and he salutes them right back before they turn to their assigned directions. Bucky and Toro stick the side of the road, Bucky being closer to the trees. It’d been like a maze if they were to navigate their way through the evergreens. As soon as you step foot into the forest it becomes too dark and it’s much more worse now that the sun is behind the long, lengthy trees. They’ll have to go in there to hide in a while.

“So…” Bucky whistles, “How’d you get the nickname?”

“Dunno. My parents called me ‘Toro’ ever since I was young and it stuck, obviously because they kept calling me it.” Toro shrugs, looking down at the dirt road.

“You know what it means?”

“No. Why? Do you?”

He does – a name for one of the underground boxers back home. “Spanish for _bull_. You’ve gone ‘round with that nickname without knowing shit, huh? It mean anything?”

Toro starts to hum, but falters. He stays silent for several seconds. The sound of the critters in the forest and their steps on the moist soil echoes through the road. Finally, he says. “Not that I know of… how’d you get yours?”

Bucky grins. “Middle name’s Buchanan. Ma was going all out, using the full name, and when she was at the ‘Buc’ one of the baby’s squealed out ‘eeeeeeee’. Buck-eeee, she’d yell. I refused to be called anything else after she… she was a winter baby, born a month early. She was too small, I s’pose.” Bucky trails off, feeling a little ashamed. “Sorry for spoilin’ the mood.”

“You know, I expected the mood to be rotten all over the war, but you SSR folks have been nothing but cheery, much like Snow White’s Dwarfs. It’s nice. I was expecting the worse for Gwenny and I… still am, put I have more hope than I usually do,” Toro admits, speaking soft and head turned to Bucky. He smiles small. “I think you deserve a somber mood.”

Bucky gulps and gestures to the dense forest, “We’re out far enough. Let’s settle here.” He breaks a few thin branches and then walks in, twigs snapping and dry leaves crunching underneath him. “Come on,” he tells Toro.

Toro walks into the gateway that Bucky’s made, but he’s about to walk straight into a branch, so Bucky pulls him around. “You were about to poke your eye out.”

“Oh,” Toro blinks, rubbing at the threatened eye, “I still can’t see it.” He squints into the space Bucky moved him from.

He can see the branch as clear as day. He can see the sunset shaded leaves growing out of it and all the details, the texture of the bark and the small insect crawling around it. He blinks, hard. “I felt it,” he lies, even though Toro probably isn’t wondering the worst like Steve would be.

“My eyes are adjusting a little now,” Toro says.

He realizes that he’s still holding onto Toro’s forearm, so he lets go. He brushes down his shirt, wishing that his coat had dried in time. Maybe he could’ve hung it out the window and let the wind dry it. He huffs, unimpressed that he didn’t come up with the idea beforehand.

“I think the reason us Commandoes are so lively is because we haven’t failed as a unit yet. I mean, the SSR has lost some, which means we’ve lost some, but… it’s not our _unit_. I don’t know what’ll happen if it’s one of us is under threat or gone or dead, but this doesn’t mean that we don’t take your life or Sabuki’s or anyone else’s life less seriously. It just comes across as realer when it’s someone you know or… children. Children are always gloomy,” Bucky confesses in the quiet night, not daring to look at Toro. If he looks, he can’t trust himself not to lean closer and lay one on him. It’s instinct for him while being this close.

Toro’s silent for several seconds. “I understand,” he mumbles and touches Bucky’s elbow, “I know Gwenny, so she’s priority without all the shits and giggles on my end, but you can shit and giggle all you want. It seems to me that you guys get your job done either way.”

“We always do whatever we can to get the job done,” he promises, then teases, “You call Agent Sabuki ‘Gwenny’? I’m guessing you know her well.”

“Her name’s Gwendolyn. She’s my partner. I’m only here so there’s someone familiar for her. And so I can sweet talk the Swiss.”

“Thanks for that, by the way. We appreciate it."

As Toro’s staring ahead, across to the opposite side of the road, Bucky shifts and gazes down a little, just to admire the lips on this man. They’re nice and plump, and the sore that was on his bottom lip has resided into a wet scab. Mostly he treasures the way he can look down at Toro, and pretends that his shoulders are narrower and that his hair is blonder, and, somehow, he feels like he’s back at home, gallivanting around Central Park with his best guy.

The quarter crackles and Monty’s voice follows, “The truck has breached the wire. I repeat: the truck has breached the wire. Over.”

“Copy. Over.” Bucky turns to Toro, which puts them at close proximity among the evergreens. He can feel a warmth breath hitting the side of his jaw. “Stay here,” he orders, and then listens closely to the tires rolling on the makeshift road. He tilts his head to the side. He can almost hear a German radio station from the car’s speakers. _He is and will remain for us what he always was: Our Hitler!_

Once Bucky sees the faint, white lights highlight the road 30 metres away, he steps across the width of it and situates himself right in the middle, rifle hoisted over his soldier. He’s ready to take the shot. His breath teeters through the iron and comforts the goose bumps that have arisen along his wrist. Does he take the kill shot? Should he aim for the shoulder so that the driver can’t control the truck? That’s the aim: to make the driver ineligible for _driving_.

The truck’s already losing air in its tires and it looks like it’s going to come to a stop before it even reaches him. Still, the driver’s Hydra. The driver’s fucking Hydra scum. He shifts his stance to his right foot and takes the shot, his cheek pressed against the scope. The suppressor downs the sound of the raging bullet. The truck whirs to a stop as the driver calls out in pain.

He holds the rifle up as he walks nearer to the truck. He spots Morita and Monty coming up from the back. Monty disappears from the side to the middle, supposedly getting to the back doors. Morita stands off to the side, poised at the ready.

Bucky heads to the driver’s side, yanks the door open and tells the driver, “Get out. Good hand on your head. On the floor.” After a thought, he then says, “Mouth open. Tongue out.”

“Woo-hoo, Sarge,” Morita howls.

The driver tumbles out onto the floor and does as he’s told. He looks a little older than Bucky himself. He’s got white sideburns and crinkles by his eyes. He’s wearing a cap with what looks like an eagle gleaming on the top layer, but it’s really a falcon (look, Bucky’s not a fucking bird expert, but he knows that the eagle belongs to the USA). There’s another little design at the brim that consists of a red dot between two fanning leaves. The driver’s not wearing the usual Hydra get up. Instead he’s in a khaki uniform. It’s a little wrinkled and darkened at his left shoulder, where Bucky shot him.

“It’s a regular Kraut,” Bucky mumbles to himself, but he tightens his grip on the trigger.

The Nazi’s breathing is laboured and his tongue isn’t lagged out, but Bucky doesn’t care about it. Regular Nazis probably don’t have a cyanide tooth.

“Sarge,” Comes Monty’s voice, “The truck’s…”

“What?” Bucky demands, expecting the worst. Dead bodies. Tortured souls. Halfway baked super-soldiers. Gwenny Sabuki surrounded by children jabbed with needles, their veins bursting.

Monty settles on, “Empty.” He comes into view, standing at one of the back corners of the truck. He’s holding a torch, and he’s visibly holding the handle down tightly. He’s got a pistol in the other hand, lowered. He repeats, “It’s empty.”

“Raymond,” Bucky calls out, keeping his rifle trained onto the individual Nazi. Shouldn’t there be more? What is this? They’ve been set up. They have to have been set up.

“Monty, you fuckin’ idiot. There’s a bunch of cases,” Morita chastises, seeming to rummage through the truck.

This might’ve been dud information. Toro’s steps sound by Bucky, and he explains, “She’s not in there. There’re no prisoners.”

Toro makes a little comprehensive noise. “The intelligence was solid. One of the OSS’ best undercover agents saw Sabuki get escorted into a truck. A German officer told the agent she was being brought here ‘for political reasons’.”

Bucky turns his attention to the blubbering driver. “This is the only through road to Auschernberg. Where’s the truck of prisoners?”

“Accent is sehr gut for Amerikan,” the driver gasps.

“And your English is shitty.” He cocks his head to the side, redirects the rifle. “Now answer the question or I’ll blow out your knees.”

“Zug…” The driver’s pasty lips are white and being bitten on, drawing all the blood away to his flushed cheeks. “Im Zug… heute Morgen.”

It takes a moment for Bucky to translate that particular word. “Train. Fuck!” He’s about to retrieve the pistol on his right thigh holster to hand to Toro, but he realizes that the agent is holding his own pistol. He tells Toro, “Hold it onto him.” Then asks, “What model’s that?”

“Oh, this?” Toro cocks the pistol to the side, “A Ruby.”

Once he’s satisfied that Toro’s barrel is confidently aimed at the driver, he strolls towards the back of the truck. He peers inside to see Morita digging through it, torch high above his head and the glint of a knife in the other. He’s using the handle of it to break the locks, but the metal is just splintering the wooden handle.

“Step aside, Jimmy,” Bucky says kindly, then takes calculated shots and it sparkles silver in the moonlight. All the locks in his view break into two.

Monty groans, “Oh, you Lord of an exhibitionist.”

There’s a brisk second of silence, of all accustomed nothingness and instead of enjoying the presence of nothing and taking advantage and just standing, he carefully listens for anything that will indicate a train. There’s a distant rumble of wheels on a track, just barely there. He might be imagining it. Agent Gwendolyn Sabuki might be a passenger on that imaginary late train.

Bucky steps back, unsure of what to do. He stares at Morita shifting through the cases and then marches to the driver, kneels down and reaches out. The driver flinches back, lowly moaning, but all Bucky does is untuck the driver’s shirt from his high pants and rips a long strip off the bottom of the shirt. The driver’s breath remains a continuous warmth on Bucky’s forehead. He looks up in annoyance and the driver starts to breathe shallower.

He ties the ripped piece of fabric around the bullet wound, perhaps accidentally poking into the wound. He relishes on the pained yelp that the Nazi driver emits, feeds off it as encouragement.

He demands, “How’s the security at the camp?”

The driver doesn’t hesitate. “Zwei Türme with die Gestapo. Dogs. Haftling gate on the side – verschlossen. Electric fence. Gestapo on die linke.”

“Thanks for being a good sport.” And he means it – the driver’s been nothing but cooperative. He’s been trying to speak English. He’s been answering questions and more. “Now, you gonna stay put or do I need to shoot your ankles out?"

The Nazi glowers. “I stay.”

“Good boy. Morita, what’s in the truck?”

“It’s some sort of guns. They’re not blue… Monty, move out the way. Whoa! Flames. A very hot flame gun. There’re some flamethrowers. Dernier would love it.”

So, the Nazis are producing flamethrowers to fight with in the upcoming snowy winter months. That’s going to work real great. Bucky feels at his breast pocket for the quarter. “Anything else?”

Morita rustles around. “Fabric?”

Bucky breathes out, agitated. He has two options, but he’ll like to seek advice from the men he’ll be putting on the line. “I have two ideas to complete the mission.”

“Let’s go with the very first one you thought of,” Monty suggests.

“That one included me yelling at Dernier to step on the gas and giving the Gestapo a rowdy midnight snack.”

Monty raises his eyebrows. “Let’s go with the second. I can only hope that it’s much better.”

 

 

 

 

It’s 0500 and they have until noon tomorrow. They carry a few cases from the Nazi truck back to the Willy for Howard to tinker with when they get back and when Howard makes an appearance at Como. Bucky maneuvers the driver into the middle of the road. When they’re trekking alongside the road to their hidden automobile, Bucky notices that Toro’s got a loose piece of fabric in his hands.

“That from one of the cases?” Bucky asks, peering over Toro’s shoulder to get a better look.

“Yeah.” Toro hands it over to Bucky, like he’s been caught look at dirty pictures and is handing them over to the perverted Sergeant who demands them.

Bucky takes it and thumbs over it, thinking of how to say what he wants to say. Just do it, he goads himself. “You mind being the extraction this time?”

“You don’t think I can—“

“No, no. It’s not that. I don’t know what you can do and how well you can do it, and I don’t know what you can’t do, but I don’t want to take any chances. Look, in my eyes you’re a spy. You dress up real nice and charm the stockings off of Hitler. The only reason I let you tag along with me just then was because I knew you wouldn’t be in the direct line of fire. I don’t feel comfortable being responsible for you when there’s a good chance that you might— y’know, right now I’m your CO. What I say goes.”

“With all due respect,” Toro throws Bucky’s words right at him, “I believe that I’m capable of being in the field. And this mission is important to me. I don’t know what I’ll do with myself if I don’t do everything I can, if I’m just sitting there doing nothing!”

He grins. “So it is personal? I was wonderin’ why the O-Double-S sent us one of theirs when we would’ve been perfectly fine with a picture of Sabuki and coordinates.”

Toro lets out a shaky breath, the anger filtering out. “I’m coming then?”

“Yes, because for some reason I think you fought real hard to come along in the first place. You look like the type to even be here without any of your superiors knowledge.” An innocent look on Toro’s face agrees with Bucky’s theory. He makes sure that Morita and Monty are a fair few feet away before he says, with all the heart he has, “But you do anything stupid or reckless that puts any of those guys in more danger than needed because you want to avenge Sabuki, I’ll be really fuckin’ pissed. Don’t do anything impossible unless it’s bulletproof. The irony was on purpose, by the way. Nazis will shoot at you.”

“I understand,” Toro quietly says.

“We’ll do everything we can, but if you go too far…”

“I understand,” Toro says again, but then smiles at Bucky and gently punches him in the shoulder, “You’re a swell guy.”

“That’s something I haven’t heard before, Toto,” Bucky teases and then hits the back of the Willy when they finally reach it. Dernier sticks his head out the window.

“Dinner,” Dernier glumly says and gets everyone settled with bread and butter and canteens of water. He mumbles to himself as he’s doing so.

Bucky finishes half his canteen, wishing it was something stronger, breaks off a bit of his dinner and mouths it, and then puts more ammo in his pockets. He polishes the barrel of his rifle with the bottom of his shirt and pats his holster to check up on his trusty pistol. He checks his belt for his fighting knives, but then realizes that he doesn’t have his utility belt because he doesn’t have his coat. Because it’s wet. He swears.

“The camp’s two miles out,” Morita’s saying, addressing a map on the bonnet, “We going with the truck or by foot, Sarge?”

The truck’s noisy, but it’s 2 miles away. Bucky juts out his bottom lip in thought. “I think we’re gonna have to march. Frenchie, you got yourself a quarter?”

“I’m gathering that we can’t use the torches because we’ll get caught,” Monty observes.

“Maybe we should wait till mornin’,” Bucky thinks out loud, but it’ll be a better surprise if 4 out of 7 Howling Commandoes and a spy with a personal agenda make an assault on Auschernberg now. All there is the Gestapo, who are only half as good as Hydra. It’ll be easy as apple pie. But then there’s the matter of all the other prisoners of war. Fuck. Bucky can already feel the shame of signaling one out of the many that are held there. Intercepting the truck that was supposed to be holding Agent Sabuki was meant to be easy.

He rubs a hand over his cheek, wishing that the shield were here. Steve would’ve been able to do something. What would Steve do? He’d barge in there like an idiot, alone, and trust the freed prisoners to fight their way through as soon as they could. Bucky wasn’t there when Gabe and the rest hijacked that tank or when Dernier fired a questionable weapon, but he’s heard about it. He’s heard what men that want their freedom can do. He teeters out a breath, relieved that if they were to make a big mess of the camp and that prisoners aside from Sabuki were freed, that there would be a course of events. Besides, he thinks, it’s highly unlikely there’ll be chaos because Sabuki’s probably locked up with other females. Not many females would be imprisoned.

“Before we set out can someone head back to the Nazi and get his cap for me? Sergeant’s orders.”

Dernier drives to get it as the others start to stretch. Toro might even have mumbled something like, “You’re not my actual Sergeant.”

They set out to the East of the compound, because that’s where the prisoners are being held. Bucky walks by Monty this time, going over the plan. He holds down the handle of the torch only halfway so the light isn’t too strong. If it’s too bright, the potential guards on the alleged guard towers might spot them. They hike through the flat forest and just as Bucky’s thighs are starting to sting, which must be with more anticipation than lactic acid, because he’s been running longer without aching, a clearing begins to appear, and the faint outline of large blocks of buildings, along two tall cylinders and a slight spiky line surround the facility. It looks far bigger than what Bucky was pictured. He quietly orders, “Light’s out, pals,” and then pockets his own torch. The lights disappear around him.

Auschernberg camp looks like a small, working village or like one of the towns Bucky and Steve had passed when Bucky had borrowed his cousin Ricky’s motorcycle. He remembers how Steve had insisted to ride it, had loathed the feeling of holding Bucky’s waist but Bucky had savoured it. Steve often never hung tight onto Bucky like Bucky hung onto Steve. The motorcycle was an excuse for Steve to just hold close to Bucky. He wishes he had a motorcycle right now. And Steve.

“You smell that?” Toro softly asks, interrupting Monty’s recital of the plan.

At first Monty looks annoyed, but then he sniffs out the air, hums, and then sniffs the air again. Bucky lets himself taste the scent that’s been overwhelming him unconsciously all a long. It’s sweet, almost like the sunflower perfume Bucky’s sisters’ sometime spray all over him when he comes to visit and heavenly like the roses the infamous _abuela_ grows in the little crates two floors down on the fire escape. Then it turns into something rotten.

His nostrils flare. Then he pretends that he can’t smell a thing, but suddenly he looks to the bare ground of the clearing and realizes his feet haven’t been crunching dry leaves. He freezes and lets his rifle go. It hits the side of his hip and he carefully steps off the skeletal hand. He outstretches his own arm, warning the others to a stop.

“Fall in a line. The soil has craters. It might be land mines. I’ll lead us through safely,” he promises and he makes sure his walk is nothing but a swagger as he steps around the craniums and clavicles and femurs and _holy shit_ that’s all he knows. He nearly sheds a tear because there must’ve been a bone – and there are heaps of them, they’re all randomly scatted across the clearing – that belonged to someone that knew the whole skeletal system. That could recite all the technical words and label them all on a diagram. They could’ve been someone that could’ve helped people, unlike Bucky, who only shoots out knee caps because he’s sour and who only stays to follow orders because he’s too afraid to rock up back at home to show his ma the crazy look in his eyes and who’s too afraid to let Steve out alone in this warzone.

He hopes the others can’t see. He hopes that the moon isn’t bright enough (it is).

It stops and they settle along a wire fence. As Bucky’s petting his pockets down to look for a laser he knows is stashed in there from last time, he sees a hand reach out to touch it. He grabs the hand and then glances up to Morita’s face.

“Nazi said is was electrocuted,” he explains, “Anyone got any smokes left?”

“Yeah, I do. Just, Sarge?” Morita’s lost for words.

“Hmm.”

“You don’t gonna pretend we’re blind,” Morita sincerely says.

Bucky lets go of Morita’s wrist and holds his hand out for the laser. He avoids Morita’s eyes. “The laser, please?” It fits into his hand and he holds it up towards the fence. He zaps through it, says quietly like he’s confessing to Father Gibbs even though he doesn’t truly believe, “I don’t know what that is.” He realizes how small he sounds, and he’s about to clear his throat and order everyone not to speak of what they saw, but –

“I don’t know either, but I do know that I feel rather ill. I can slit a man’s throat while he’s sleeping because it’s a tactical advantage and not feel sick at all, but this is something else,” Monty admits, “It’s worse than your driving, Sarge.”

Bucky smiles at that, but his smile gets larger when Morita grumbles, “You’re acting like our damn mother, Barnes.”

“Raymond, we can puke out our dinner together after we’ve retrieved your agent,” Monty addresses Toro.

Bucky realizes that Toro’s lost more colour than the usual pale complexion that the moon reflects. He hands the laser to Morita, who makes quick work of adding to the man-sized hole. Bucky turns to Toro and gulps, unsure of what to say without sounding either too ludicrous or like he’s babying. His lower lip trembles. “When we get Sabuki back. When we get Gwenny back you can forget you saw this and focus on her. Let it just… go away. That’s what usually happens to most things like this.”

“What are things other than _most things_?” Morita turns to ask, suspicious.

A cold slab table that will make your elbows numb. The needles in your veins and the tape around your eyes. The sleep you lose because you think you see the love of your life in the corner of your eye and you think you smell one of your ma’s bakes and feel the soft hair of one of your sisters while your learning how to braid it. Bucky shrugs. “Just other things, y’know.”

Toro wheezes out an audible breath and then nods, determined. “I’m good to go.”

“I wouldn’t expect anything less from you,” Bucky assures him.

They step foot into the body of the camp.

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The cigarette lasers and quarter walkie talkies that they use are real in the universe. Trip (RIP my favourite) lent SHIELD a case of all the Commandoes gadgets. 
> 
> FACTS: Switzerland was a neutral country in both WW1 and WW2. The OSS, the Office of Strategic Services, was developed in Bern. The Allies also accidentally bombed some Swiss towns, mistaking them for German.
> 
> THANKS FOR READING. kisses


	2. The Invaders

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Run, he looks like he’s screaming. Bucky doesn’t understand it soon enough. 
> 
> (Toro has a little bit of fire in him. The mission ends in confounding terms. Bucky gets on his knees for his favourite man. Dum Dum causes mayhem with another cockroach scam.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning again: sexual assault is MENTIONED, but it has nothing to do with the plot. It's a misinterpretation. Themes of conflict and the Holocaust, of course. 
> 
> All mistakes are my own.
> 
> I really enjoyed writing this, so I hope you enjoy reading it. Thank you, canimlar .

Bucky takes Toro to find where Sabuki’s being held while Morita and Monty keep watch of the perimeter. It’s surprising that the guards up in the towers haven’t spotted them quite yet, but then it’s possible that there aren’t any holed up there. Perhaps the Gestapo strongly believe that no one will escape. No, they _know_ that no one will escape – if the skeletal system out there is anything to judge by. Maybe the bones out there are only a scare tactic. Maybe they’ve been picked off abandoned, rotting battlefields and spread out here just to strike fear into the prisoner’s hearts. Anything else would violate the convention.

They stick along the brick walls and Bucky halts at a corner when he hears faint murmuring. He sees stretches of two long shadows, representing sitting figures. There’s a small table between them and what oddly looks like a small mountainous range, but it must be a chess set. According to the shadows they’re either sitting facing towards where Bucky and Toro need to walk through, or they’re facing away. Bucky peeks around the building and then pulls Toro along with him as they quickly make a dash across the gap between buildings. The Nazis playing chess fortunately not looking up from their game.

“Schachmatt!” One of the SS officers cry out, a startling noise in the silence of the camp.

“Checkmate,” Bucky translates for Toro.

“I know German,” Toro whispers back.

A set of heavy steps erupts from either behind them or in front of them. Bucky quickly fits the small groove of the cap from the Nazi driver over his head and hopes that the shadows do wonders and hide his ratty, completely un-Nazi like uniform. He moves Toro in front of him, covering Toro’s smaller form with wider shoulders, when he looks over his shoulder and sees that the steps are coming from behind them. The figure turns the corner towards the chess game, completely missing them.

“Guards awake for their next shift, probably,” Bucky says and they continue to shuffle through the Gestapo’s quarters.

“Wait,” Toro hisses, “Can you hear that?”

Bucky had been too focused listening to potential footsteps threatening to gain them, that he’d missed the small whimpers filtering through the buildings. Toro and he both pause, listening to the sound that’s emitting from the building they’re leant against. “Probably a gal and her Nazi pal getting into some late night fondue,” Bucky mindlessly dismisses it.

“What?” Toro gasps, confused, and Bucky thinks that he really needs to stop listening to Steve’s drabbles and Howard’s rumours because he always ends up sounding like an idiot in front of anyone not in on the joke, but then all he thinks about is what Toro says next, “She’s pleading.”

He listens closely. “Bitte,” the girl yells. She sounds young. Her accents odd, a foreign begging in the language she may be being assaulted in. He tries to hear the grunts of a fucking indecent male, but there’s none. So, he thinks, some men can be silent. This girl might even be pleading for him to keep on going. _Please_ can mean anything.

“We’ll check it out,” he grumbles, because Steve will kill him if he doesn’t, “and if I catch an eyeful of Nazi dick I’m gonna shoot it off.”

“Why would you— _oh_ … that’s not I thought that was at all. I thought it was Gwenny being tortured.”

Bucky’s mouth circles into an ‘O’. “Oh,” he says very quietly. They’re not even in the prisoner’s section yet. That compound is visibly separate from where the Gestapo stays, surrounded by another set of tall barbed wire. Then he thinks: the prisoners wouldn’t even see the mass grave out there. He urges his hands to stop shaking. “You think it’s her? Get on my shoulders.” He crouches down and looks up expectantly at Toro, “So you can see through the window. Just do it.”

“This is ridiculous,” Toro mumbles.

“Get on, Toto.”

Toro’s groin presses against the back of Bucky’s head and his thighs fit onto Bucky’s shoulders. Bucky grabs the muscles of his thighs, gripping tight. He hoists Toro closer, ensuring that he’s stable before coming up and straightening out his knees. He balances Toro on his shoulders before he maneuvers slightly to the left, where the high, barred window is. He sets his gaze on the brick wall in front of him. He can smell something burning.

“Oh God,” Toro gasps, “We have to get in there _now_.”

Bucky almost stumbles to the ground when Toro jumps off of him. He grabs Toro’s forearm to stop him from running off and doing exactly what Toro promised not to do. “Run me down. What’s going on in there?”

“They’ve got her hooked into this machine and she’s _burning_. Please. Come on. Let me go. Let me fix this!”

So, Nazis are down for a little late night torture. Bucky doesn’t let go. “Any guards?” Toro nods. “They armed?”

“Just two with pistols! Come on.” Toro’s getting louder, probably attracting company.

Bucky pushes Toro behind him to stop him from rushing into there like an over eager hunting dog. “I’m leading this assault,” he harshly reminds, biting off a sarcastic spit of _Spy Boy_ , urging Toro to stop jittering. He needs Toro to be calm so he can stop worrying and concentrate on taking efficient shots and getting Sabuki out of the machine Toro’s described.

Then he hears nearing footsteps, perhaps 6 Nazis, and he thinks, fuck it, and sprints to the other side of the building, Toro on his heels. When they get to the front door it’s locked. He wipes a sweaty palm on his thigh. He steps back and shoots the hinges of the door in three lucky separate shots. Before he kicks the wavering door down, he reaches down to one of his hostlers, pushing his rifle behind him to get it out of the way because this will be close range, and raises his handgun quicker than the Nazis raise their Mauser’s and takes three – not two, like Toro observed – shoots to unhand the lazy, no-good guards. He breaks the nose of the one that charges towards him.

There’s a large, rusty machine running alongside the left of the room, right opposite the window that Toro peered into. There’s a circular, clear gap in the middle. Inside there’s an outline of a flame consumed face, but the face is unclear. There’s a pipe running along side the otherwise empty room, filled with smoke from the chamber that Sabuki – maybe it’s her, he hopes it isn’t her – is trapped in.

The person yells again in German, “It doesn’t work! This isn’t working!”

“It’s her!” Toro shouts.

Bucky shivers. “Get her outta there. I’ll keep the Nazis busy.”

Toro enters the room and Bucky watches as he feels the machine. The heat mustn’t be seeping through the walls, because Toro’s touching it with his bare hands and not pulling back. A lucky shot splinters the ground by Bucky’s feet. Well, it’s unlucky for the guy who took it. Bucky wishes he were perched on top of the building or in a high tree instead of grounded, but he just huffs and slips out his modified M1211 pistol he was unofficially issued by Howard when he discovers that the magazine on his original pistol’s run out. He slips the useless weapon into his thigh holster.

The Nazis turn on all their lights, brightening the scene. An alarm sounds.

He pulls a classic Steve and picks up the floored, broken door and shields himself with it. It’s not ideal, but there’s no other coverage and it’s hard and heavy, so it’s good enough. He punches a hole in the flimsy metal, his fist only tickling at the impact. He’s definitely going to get his blood tested after this ( _no_ , his thoughts weaving away from the adrenaline scream). Bullets are going to go through this real quick, he knows. He sticks his hand through the gap and peeks over the door. He counts 8 approaching guards, most of them armed with _Gewehr_ ’s, and aims for the usual sore spots, knows that his 7 rounds are going to fall short and he’s not going to have enough time to reload. #1’s knees buckle. #2 falls back humorously as his neck’s pierced. #3’s going to _love_ going for a piss in the future. #4 manages to skim a bullet against the side of Bucky’s ankle before he goes down with the taste of his own medicine. Bucky gets uncreative with #5, #6 and #7 and sends them howling to the ground with basic headshots.

He lets #8 get nearer, bends around the machine gun (surprise!) fire and when #8 pauses to reload, he throws the remains of the door at the enemy soldier. The soldier buckles to the ground at the impact.

Just as Bucky’s catching his breath, he spots another round of Nazis and he’s about to swear and yell, “Why!” but then he remembers that he’s literally on German soil. And German soil currently belongs to Nazis.

He slips his hand into one of his pockets and speaks into the quarter he pulls out, “Don’t engage. Over.”

“It’s a little too late for that Sarge,” Morita breathlessly answers. Several approaching Nazis get shot from their sides.

Dernier answers with a half-committed noise. 

Bucky slips in a new magazine in as the rule-breaking newcomers distract the Nazis. He holds his pistol out in front of him as he steps backwards into the room. He immediately stumbles back out when he feels that his back stings with a sharp heat. He spins around on his heels, making himself blind to the conflict.

“What the fuck,” he swears once he sees what’s in the fire consuming the entire room.

Toro seems to be pressed up against the machine, his hands on fire, and his whole body shaking. He’s going to fucking die, get engulfed in the flames and all Bucky will have to take back to Phillips, and whoever is in charge of the OSS, ashes that’ll probably be mixed with debris alongside Toro’s and Sabuki’s and the SS guards. Bucky will _not_ fail this mission, no matter how warped it’s gotten.

He makes sure to pull his sleeves down, so that the flames get to his clothing before his skin because he’s not sure if whatever he got pumped with is going to make him resilient to fire… he wonders if Steve’s skin can burn. It’s best not to do anything to test that theory.

He’s about to enter the room, but then Toro stretches out a hand that’s engulfed in flames and there’s something in those dark eyes, something alight. Bucky realizes that Toro’s warning him, but from what? Is Toro warning Bucky to stay away from him because his own hands are actually holding the fire, forcing it onto the machine? Toro screams at him, but Bucky can’t hear him. It’s just an open mouth wet with fire. _Run_ , he looks like he’s screaming.

Bucky doesn’t understand it soon enough.

The whole building and the grassy ground rattle. Bucky freezes and attempts to get away at the last second. The small, singular room unleashes its fury in a vast diameter. It throws Bucky into the air, spinning. He tries to land back onto his feet, but when the energy of the blast completely vanishes and all that’s left are burning building parts, he crashes to the ground with his left shoulder and he chokes on his saliva when he feels a shift within the nerves. He groans while his head follows, the impact effectively knocking him out.

It must be only a few seconds before he comes to, his rifle digging uncomfortably into his side. He turns onto his back and exhales sharply at the damaged nerves electrocuting his arm. He shrivels into the ground and keeps his breathing shallow, mocking what he’s seen the dead look like. He can hear gunshots in the distance, though it might be closer because his ears are still whirring. When they’re ringing he can always hear distant gunshots.

He’s too afraid to get up. He’s lost his pistols and his rifle’s probably crushed under his weight. His still has his bayonet stuffing in his boot, but his left arm’s injured. The mission’s failed anyway, so it’s no use. Both Sabuki and Toro were in the heart of the explosion, unless…

“Sarge,” a voice shouts, impatient.

He digs his good hand into his pocket and pulls out the quarter. He lays it on his chest and presses onto it. “Jimmy.”

“Back at you, Jimmy,” Morita chuckles, though shaky. A few gunshots sound through the walkie-talkie and in real life. “All Nazis have been dealt with, but they’ve got reinforcements coming in. What do we do?”

“I don’t… move out,” he advises, “Contact Dernier. Get out of here.”

“Where are you?”

Bucky presses to his left, knocking the quarter off his chest. He sharply shifts up, letting his shoulder fit back into the groove of the socket. He opens his mouth into a scream, but it gets caught into his throat. He heaves himself up to his knees with his right hand pressed to the ground, the Nazi cap falling off his head. He wriggles his left fingers and then comes to a stand.

It’s smoldering around him, the fire already dying out. He clips his rifle off the strap, tosses the rifle onto the ground and keeps the strap. He likes the strap. His left arm lags uselessly by his side. He uses the rifle strap as a makeshift sling, because his left arm just hanging there was beginning to hurt and now that it’s tucked against his abdomen it’s just a dull pain. His right arm’s free too, now that he won’t be holding up his left.

He hears a crackled spark of fire behind him and he calmly turns around, and all his unconscious suspicions are confirmed true.

He smirks. “You know what? I’m not even surprised.”

Toro looks a little sheepish. His shirt’s are a little charred at his wrists. He’s carrying a small Japanese woman that’s wearing the same fabric, though it’s charred, that they found in the truck they intercepted. It’s covering her whole body but her head. Her head’s lolled back, but her eyes are faintly open. Her black her is tied into a ponytail. She’s breathing heavily, exhausted. Her exposed skin almost glows gold. This must be Gwendolyne Sabuki.

Looking up from her, Bucky observes Toro’s simmering shoulders. “Fire, huh? You think that’s impressive. I have a friend who can lift a motorcycle that has, heh, a dozen USO girls on it.”

“You _invaders_!” A piercing, English accented woman’s voice thunders, “Oh!”

Bucky almost rolls his eyes. Here comes a war bride. He turns around and processes the petite woman with a pretty face and a storm rifle that’s larger than the length of her thin arms. Her gorgeous yellow hair is in rollers, like Peggy’s would probably be right now. She’s wearing a silky, creamy dressing gown and what can only be interpreted as cape that’s a familiar shade of green. She’s wearing a necklace that fits tightly around her throat, like a collar, that has a skull emblem on it. Minus all the bad aspects, Bucky would’ve probably asked her if she was rationed, _sugar_.

“Ah,” Bucky exhales. Hail Hydra. Well, Hail Hydra in the form of one of Hydra’s wives or… an actual Hydra member. She’s holding the rifle like a professional, but if she fires she’ll probably still fall back with the force. Bucky puts his good hand up in surrender and then loudly whispers back to Toro, “Do the thing now.”

The woman laughs, sounding disturbingly evil. Her mouth opens largely and she tips her head back with the belly-shaking laughter. She snaps back, eyes crazy, and sweetly smiles. “Not today, Flame Boy,” she purrs. She reaches back, balancing the rifle up with one hand, and then pulls a translucent purple hood over that covers her entire face. She rolls her neck, the air bubbles crack.

Is it bad that Bucky thinks she’s a little _sexy_? Today’s been quite a day of attractive people and looking at them in glorious angles. There was looking up at the underneath of Steve’s jaw that morning, the moment Toro accidentally went to face him and instead hit his cheek, and now this absolutely priceless vision of a gorgeous woman in a menacing, evil stance.

He steps slightly to the side, stepping onto the quarter he left on the ground. The line’s private and if it’s destroyed, the other quarter would just erupt into static. It’s a call for help. The woman follows the movement with her rifle, snaps, “Don’t move or I’ll shoot… oh, you’re quite stunning, aren’t you, Sergeant James Barnes? Oh, Zola’s told me plenty about you. Should I see if his serum can mend a shot in the heart? I’ve heard that—“

“Victoria,” Toro interruptions her, “You’ve gone too far.”

“Oh, that little debacle? I was testing a new compound with the asbestos.” Victoria’s gaze falls beyond Bucky’s shoulders. “I see it worked. Oh, your beloved sidekick hasn’t melted like an icy block in the sun. Yet.” She raises the rifle high. “Which one of you will I choose first? Maybe the one that’ll make it to the papers before his body gets back home… but then Zola would be grumpy with me.” She pouts, like this really does upset her. She puts her free hand on her chin under her mask and runs her pointer finger across her mouth, toying with her lips in mindless thought.

“What do you know about what Zola did to me?” Bucky demands, but settles slightly when Toro pulls him back and takes the position closest to this Victoria. Bucky notices that Sabuki’s been laid down on the ground. Her eyes are open and her glowing palms are now gloveless of the fabric that supposedly protected her from the fire. Bucky makes the connection: it’s the same fabric that Victoria is wearing, which means that she’ll be defended against Toro’s only weapon. He looks down at Sabuki, but she’s concentrating on breathing and staring at Bucky’s combat boots.

Where the hell are the rest of the four of the seven Howling Commandoes? A rescue sounds real good right about now.

And then he fully comprehends the fact that Sabuki’s palms are _glowing_. Bucky pretends to fall down to the ground with a groan so that villainous Victoria won’t pay any particular attention to him. He rolls towards Sabuki and grabs her wrist. It’s radiating with heat.

“…Killed my parents and then tried to kidnap me!”

“I offered you a _job_!” Victoria sounds scandalized.

“This is a mess,” Bucky whispers sweetly to Sabuki. He tries to hold her hand to comfort her, but the golden light pushes him away. It’s radiating now, all over her skin. Bucky can hear the slight buzz. He smiles at her and searches her face for any indication that she’s not strong enough. Her eyes are wide open now. He tells her, “I think you can end it with whatever,” he nods down at the growing, radiant light, “that is.”

Sabuki murmurs something in Japanese, her lips barely moving. She clasps her hands together, but they get sprung apart by the light that grows larger. She whimpers. Bucky doesn’t know if she’s in pain or just too overwhelmed and sensitive because of the power exuding out of her.

An irregular noise sounds. It’s the sound that Howard implanted into the Willy. Its Steve’s voice passionately yelling, “Fondue! Fondue! Fondue!”

Bucky almost has it in him to laugh.

Sabuki begins to heave in deep breaths and she grips her fists so tight, that Bucky knows what’s to come. He clenches his eyes shut and begs for the miracle he’s dreaming of to happen. If it doesn’t the vulnerable position he’s put himself in would be a waste. He can almost see the radiating light behind his eyelids. Sabuki enforces a golden beam from out of the palm of her small hands. There’s so much power, that Bucky feels the very being that was forced into his bloodstream begin to tingle along his skin. She sags against him, collapsing.

“Fondue! Fondue!” The chant nears.

He opens his eyes and springs into action. He spins onto his back and cocks his hips up, throwing himself up to his feet without putting any weight on his arms. He goes to roll his shoulders back to ease the tenseness of his spine, but he recoils that movement right away. He’s almost too afraid to look where the beam hit.

Toro crashes past him, attending to Sabuki’s state. Victoria’s twitching on the ground. Her storm rifle’s left abandoned a couple of feet away from her outstretched hand. Her silk gown is rumpled up to her thighs and her emerald cape’s shredded around her. Her purple mask is rumpled at her forehead. Her mouth’s wide open. There’s a huge gapping hole in her torso, but somehow she’s still gasping for the air that definitely has no place to go. Bucky stares at the desperation on her face.

“Oh,” she says with this voice that’s halfway between a purr and a gasp, “How dare you use the powers I _gave_ you _against_ me.” Her chest starts to rise and fall faster, sucking in air that filters right out of her wound. It never once steadies. She’s going to lay here alive if no one –

He cuts off the beginnings of Toro’s rant, “You forced this onto us! We didn’t want—“, with a meek, although loud and on the bridge of authority, “Give me your Ruby pistol.” He holds out his good arm, but awaiting the weight of the pistol it aches. He wriggles his fingers. He doesn’t dare turn around. “Come on.”

The pistol fits into his hand, but it’s uncomfortable. He twirls it around a few times before settling it so that it’s aimed at Victoria. He steps closer to her so that his foot is nudged up against her shoulder and he crouches down so he knows that she can hear him.

“You know what Zola did to _me_?”

She spits in his face. He lets it drop down the curve of his nose and back onto her reddened lips. Instead of killing her, he startles her by shooting point black at the ground just by her ear. Her smile is maddening. He turns to Toro, wiping his face, and gestures to Sabuki, who’s unconscious and back into the steaming arms. “I don’t appreciate the fact that you didn’t tell me just how personal this was.”

Toro visibly gulps. “I’m sorry.”

“No, you’re not.”

Toro sheepishly smiles. “I am,” he insists, “I really am, but I couldn’t tell you about… my power.”

“But you honestly thought that not telling me that this was more than a damsel in distress situation was a good idea?” He holsters the Ruby pistol and decides to keep it. It’s rather small and stealthy and he enjoyed the recoil.

“Please don’t tell any—“

“I know how to keep a damn secret.”

“You’re like me, aren’t you?” Toro asks. His voice is so small and helpful. He might also be searching for something to be grateful for.

Bucky shakes his head as he looks away. “No.”

“But…”

“Fondue!” Steve yells and right afterwards, Monty calls out, “Sergeant Barnes! Your ride has arrived!”

“Oh, I could go for some fondue,” Victoria croaks.

The Willy comes to a stop dangerously close to Victoria. Dernier, who’s driving, sticks his head out the window and looks down at the dying woman. He examines the gigantic hole in her stomach and then looks up in amazement at Bucky.

Dernier’s mouth opens and shuts comically. He then asks, “Whaaaat?” Bucky shrugs.

“Get Sabuki in the back!” Morita commands, already climbing into the larger, third row from the second, “Barnes, in the second. I’m _checking_ that shoulder even if you set it. You could have done it wrong.”

Bucky faces Toro, who’s looking back at him like he’s seeking permission. Bucky nods and watches as the pair climbs into the back. He holds up a hand to Morita, who’s still urging him inside like he’s not going to obey, and crouches down to Victoria’s level again.

He licks his lips, then whispers, “You seem like a Zola-type of lady. Tell me, are you?”

“Oh,” she crows, “I tie them up naked in the snow just so I can observe – no, but that’s not what they call it, because they don’t think I’m a scientist. I can’t _observe_ things. I’m just a woman,” she coughs and begins again, “Oh, I burn them alight just so I can find something that could keep me safe from one of my own _creations_. It’s enlightening, oh, to create something so powerful, yet they don’t know. Darling, your blood is something extraordinary. Your blood is not you. Oh, it’ll never be you again. Zola made sure of it. No matter how much—“

Bucky puts a bullet in her head. Her monologue ends with a hitched wheeze. She coughs out blood and blinks in attempt to clear her eyes of the red that’s pouring in them from her forehead, and then she lays still with her eyes hazy. She’s stopped twitching and her chest’s stopped sucking in. Her gown is smooth against her skin. Bucky gives her some courtesy and softly pushes her weightless eyelids down. He wipes his fingertips onto the bottom of his shirt, rubbing off the light cream powder that was livening the woman’s face.

All he can think is: why?

“Sarge,” Monty softly urges.

Bucky looks up sharply. The rest of his body rises along with his head. He climbs into the open door, bracing himself on the roof of the Willy with his good arm, and settles down when Monty shuffled over enough to give him space. He slams the door shut.

“Frenchie, we’ll cross the border and find a place to stay until sunrise. We’re all tired,” he quietly says.

“We can,” Toro starts to say, but he hesitates. Bucky waves a hand to indicate to keep on going. “We can stop in Bern. The OSS has a base there.”

“Bern it is, then.”

Monty lowly whistles. “How did that woman get that wound?”

“She was the Hydra aspect,” Bucky informs, then lies, “She had a huge weapon, nothing I’ve ever seen before. She fired, but it reversed and she hit herself instead. She kept flapping her gums ‘bout something. I feel like something was left unresolved. Suppose’ll stay a mystery.”

“At least we got the agent back,” Monty comforts with a little smile. He then widens his eyes. “She is alive, is she not? Morita!” He turns around with a quick sufficiency.

Bucky snorts and then kicks the back of Dernier’s seat. “Frenchie, hit the gas already.”

“Une seconde!” Dernier says. He rolls down the window, hits the gas and throws an unpinned grenade out the window, onto the already explosion ridden soil. He lets out a shout, “Victoire!” He beeps the horn. _Fondue! Fondue!_

“Thought you told him no explosions?” Morita laughs from the back.

“I’ll let him have this one,” Bucky drawls, because each grenade that’s getting thrown out destroys the Nazi buildings a little more and it makes the lights along them cut out. Bucky should tell Dernier to found the power source that generates the electricity for this place so they can fry it, but his voice would be too small against the loud bangs and the yelling.

The beating pattern of victory doesn’t last. It falters as soon as they reach what could only be the prisoner’s quarters. Dernier stops throwing grenades and murmurs worriedly, but doesn’t ease up on the speed.

Along the electrocuted, wiry fence there are people standing behind it. They don’t dare touch the wire, or else their flesh will sizzle. They’re faces are ghostly and sunken. Their eye sockets are rounded and their cheekbones are just thick lines across their faces. Most of them are men, but there are fresh-faced children and chubby women. The men are the ones that look like ghosts.

As the Willy’s passing through, Bucky catches flashes of badges and armbands on the prisoners. They’re of all different colours. There’s red, green, pink and blue. There’s the same purple shade that Bucky’s sister has a church dress of, on the bridge of a light shade of violet.

They’re stick thin and ethereal. There must be thousands and they’re all watching Bucky and his unit just _leaving_ them there.

“Dernier,” Bucky says rapidly, “Once there’s a gap I want you to take out the fence.”

He sees Dernier nod.

Something in Bucky was always screaming at him, nothing could be worse than the creature they awoke inside you. He pled that there was nothing inferior to the alien chemical that unleashed fury and led his own blood cells to spasm underneath his skin. Looking out the window, he knows that there is. He knows that this is it. The people aren’t reacting to him or Monty or Toro, they’re just watching. The mass grave should have brought that hidden thought of Bucky’s to light, but instead it’s the graves of the dents of the prisoners’ clavicles and jaws.

The crowd eventually comes to an end, but so does the fence. Dernier takes a sharp turn and throws a grenade towards a tall wall. Bucky leans closer and interprets it as a gate. It’s the prisoner’s gate. He catches a word on a heavy block that crashes down with the rest of the structure, creating an opening in the fence keeping the prisoners from getting out.

 _Frei_ , it says. It means free in German. These people are not free. Maybe it was part of a phrase, but Bucky can only imagine how much irony the word already has just by being carved into the gate of a prison.

As they’re cruising away, Bucky turns around and looks through the back window, past Toro, Morita and a stirring Sabuki. He sees that the prisoners aren’t moving. They’re not making any effort to escape when they obviously can. There are no guards. They are free.

“They’re not leaving!” Bucky shouts and he almost orders Dernier to turn back, but what would they do if they went back?

A mouse-like voice softly says, “They have no hope.”

Bucky glances down at Sabuki. Her face is sweaty and her eyes are closed. She’s got her head on Toro’s lap and Morita’s checking the scabs on her arms.

“No hope makes freedom a distant vision.” Her lips barely move.

 

 

 

Bucky hardly talks or moves around too much in Bern. Bucky doesn’t sleep in Bern. They settle into a room, him and his three Commandoes, and he pretends that they’re deep in enemy land. He drills it into his head that he needs to keep watch, otherwise sleep will come too easy and his dreams will consume him to his very being. Green capes and fingers toying with lips to join the round glasses and needles. He sits up against the wall and stares out the window. The moon’s circle is full. He regularly sweeps his eyes over his men, a habit from home, to check if they’re still breathing.

He hears Morita whisper when he thinks Bucky’s asleep, “Barnes needs a quick Rogers fix.”

“A quick one? I think he ought to have a Rogers _week_ ,” Monty whispers back, and they all giggle together. Bucky watches them with a humourless smile.

He clears his throat and they pretend to fall into slumber, which leads them into deep sleep.

Bucky does not sleep. He wishes he could run. He gives into his body and sifts through the cots, gets out the door. He stalks down the empty stairway with his left arm still slung across his chest and his right hanging by his side, his fingers drumming along the side of his thigh. He breaks out into the early morning chill.

He rubs at his face, screaming at himself to wake up. He stretches his eyes sockets down and then blinks quickly several times. He shuffles on the footpath, keeps his head low until he cocks it to the side to shake himself awake. With the motion he views the alleyway on the right, catches Agent Toro in the act.

Toro’s got a cigarette between his lips and he’s lighting it with a flaming finger. His eyes are handsomely narrowed in concentration. His hair’s sleeked back and the buttons on his shirt are undone, revealing a whitened undershirt underneath.

“You oughta be more careful,” Bucky calls out, “There’s some real blabbermouths out there.”

“What’d you talking ‘bout? It’s a lighter,” Toro casually says.

Bucky strolls towards him. He snatches the cigarette out of Toro’s mouth and puts it in his own. He sucks in deeply and blows out harshly. He holds it out. Their hands touch as Toro takes it back. Bucky leans against the brick wall. It’s rough on his shoulders, even through his clothes.

“How’d you…” He waves his hand. “How’s Sabuki?”

“Good. She’s good. A little startled about the radiance coming out of her… but we’ll work on it together. Like I had too.”

“Did it hurt?”

“Did what hurt?”

He taps the back of Toro’s hand and takes the cigarette. “The flames.”

“A little,” Toro responds with a stubborn liars lie.

Bucky huffs a laugh and doesn’t deter when Toro steps directly in front of him. As he blows out smoke, Toro visibly breathes it in. Toro’s fingers are threaded together and there’s a ball of fire within his clasped hands. The warmth it’s radiating sets an easing essence in Bucky’s chest. His eyes follow the flickering light, across Toro’s chest and to a pouty mouth. The cut’s just a fine line across the lips, no longer gushing or dried with red.

“You stare at my mouth a lot, you know. Shamelessly too,” Toro says, like a passing comment meant to be ignored.

Bucky bashfully grins. He hesitates before he slyly says, “Don’t feel special. It’s my default setting – to appreciate.” He drops the stubbed cigarette and steps on it, effectively crowding Toro’s space. He tilts his head and blinks lazily, staring at Toro’s dark, bronzed eyes. “You ever in trouble, ring the New York Bell Company and say: _Buchanan fed the stray again. Grant won’t stop sneezing_. Repeat it.”

Toro scrunches his eyebrows together, but complies. “Buchanan fed the stray again. Grant won’t stop sneezing.” His eyes narrow in interest. “Buchanan?”

“A coincidence,” Bucky refers to Carter’s deliberate pick as. The phrase was adopted from a story that Bucky told her about an incident that happened back home, not drunk on the moonshine they’d been passing to each other the whole night. Her excuse was that she wasn’t drinking when the homemade brew was passed to her and Bucky, instead of facing the slaughter, pretended to be extra touchy and nuzzled his face into Steve’s neck.

“Just…” Bucky steps to Toro’s side, so they’re not too close anymore. “Remember that. Buchanan fed the stray again. Grant won’t stop sneezing. It’s random and memorable. I know it’ll be stuck in this noggin forever.” He taps a closed fist to the side of his head.

“That’s it?” Toro calls after Bucky’s descending figure.

“You expectin’ a kiss?” Bucky sing songs and blows a kiss over his shoulder. “Catch it and smack it where you want it. Nowhere naughty, I hope.”

 

 

 

 

They’re halfway to Lake Como, snacking on the rations that they pinched from the OSS’s mess hall. They realized that – or rather, Monty brought attention to the fact that – the OSS’s head of command would want to have a briefing, but Phillips would also what a briefing. This meant that they’d have to run through the mission key points twice and they can’t be bothered, so they pocketed breakfast and lunch and made a run for it. Bucky appointed Dernier as driver once again, because he’s the speediest of them all.

Bucky really wants to – needs to – get some sleep, but he knows he won’t unless he’s either too sleep deprived to comprehend the dreams when he finally gives into the deprivation, or if he’s with Steve. He hopes Steve’s back by now. Milan isn’t too far away, he thinks.

He nearly doses off against the window, but he snaps his head up as soon as he feels the chill creeping up his neck. He wipes his eyes lethargically and accepts the single grape that Monty is offering him from the back. He mouths it. It’s sweet and juicy, and the taste seems to just blast in his mouth. It’s reassuring that something so simple replenishes everything in his mind for just a moment.

“You know what,” he thinks out loud. He clenches his jaw to fight back a yawn. His eyes still water.

“What,” Morita says, a little muffled. His mouth must be full.

“You all did real good this mission. Drinks on Steve next time we hit a bar.”

Morita pats his right shoulder, remembering that his left is injured. Bucky got a proper sling from the OSS’ infirmary and Morita checked if his shoulder was set correctly, which it was. Even if it weren’t beforehand, it would have managed to heal correctly. The strength of his left shoulder was re-developed over night, like every minor injury always does, and he only has the sling on for show. He’ll take it off in a few days time, when more important matters will arise.

Dernier starts to rattle on about different sorts of supposedly expensive wines that Steve can get them, to which Bucky nods in affirmative to each one. He adds, “If we come across a” and tries to pronounce the titles of one of the wines, to which Dernier just stares at him like the Gates of Hell have just opened up in his mouth.

“Maybe you should,” Monty leans closer, stifling a laugh, “Leave the wonders of the French language to the professional, Sergeant Barnes.” He puffs out a whiff of smoke in Bucky’s direction. Then he shoves a lit cigarette between Bucky’s lips.

Bucky lazily grins at his men through the cigarette and tries not to snore.

 

 

 

Steve’s sitting on his cot when Bucky enters the tent after he’s ditched the sling. Steve’s still sharply lined with blue, red and white, but the white is promptly stained with light shades of red, though it’s lighter and edging towards pink. He’s already looking up and tossing his sketchbook and pencil to the side. Steve’s poised to stand, his hands on the cot, but Bucky just zips up the flaps and falls onto his knees with a gratifying, nearing inhumane sob. He crawls, ignoring the jarring movement of his loose shoulder, and gets a tight hold onto Steve’s right ankle and his left hip and nudges his face onto Steve’s thigh. A shiver runs through his entire body to withhold the tears. If Phillips weren’t still gone with Howard he wouldn’t have been able to have to have this pleasure.

A hand immediately fits onto the back of his head and nails scratch idly into his scalp. Steve doesn’t say anything, not for a while. He only says, “Bucky.”

“I don’t know,” Bucky gasps, answering to the unspoken question. He breathes in Steve’s smell. It’s gunpowder and metal. It’s grimy and he puts his open mouth against it, just trying to breathe. He doesn’t think he can. On each exhale, he shakes, “I don’t know. I don’t know. Stevie.”

“What happened to you? God, the last time you were like this you… Bucky, who did this to you? Tell me right now. Bucky.”

Bucky retracts his hands and fits one over Steve’s hand that’s pressed against the side of his face and fits one around Steve’s wrist, that’s bracing the hand that has got a grip on his hair. He stares up at Steve, like he did yesterday morning and many times before, even as Steve was small and mighty. _Angel of God, my guardian dear, please let me look up at my man for the rest of my being._ The blue in Steve’s eyes is rather remarkable. The pale skin underneath his jaw is glorious and stretched out over a spectacular structure that houses mouth-drooling angles. _Pray for us sinners now_.

His eyes droop and he stares at the white star brooded onto Steve’s uniform. He notes the light blood splatter across one of the points. He shudders a breath, “I want this off.”

He sits back and looks expectantly at Steve, who’s just gripping his hands into fists and then stretching his fingers out. It’s like he’s unsure of how to use them now that he’s not touching Bucky or holding his pencil. Bucky looks away. His wandering eyes land on the open sketchbook. The light lines indicate a draft of a portrait and the lips are considerably darkened. The eyebrows are curved in a familiar way. The beginnings of the sketch belong to an Agent Carter. Bucky looks back up at Steve’s face when he hears a rustle.

“Bucky, what’s wrong?”

“I can’t stand to look at this right now, alright? I don’t know, but it’s this outfit. I love it, but not _right now_ ,” he grumbles, taking his needs into his own hands. He sweeps his palms along Steve’s thick thighs and thumbs with the buttons on Steve’s combat trousers. He slips them open and attempts to pull it down. The trousers don’t budge, but then registers the utility belt at Steve’s waist. He realizes that his hands are shaking. He moves along to the colourful, grubby shirt and forces it out of the belt, and sweeps it up.

Steve’s body now consists of hard lines. His stomach is flat with muscles rather than bones, like it was back home. He presses a kiss into one of the indents and then pulls back when he hears Steve’s breath hitch. He presses his face against Steve’s thigh once again, relieved that the star’s all disfigured along with the fabric that’s scrunched up at Steve’s shoulders. The back of his head hits something solid in Steve’s belt.

“Buck. What are you doing? Hey, what’s your play here?” Steve’s hands are suddenly on his shoulders. His fingers dig into the tense muscles. Bucky inhales sharply when a finger prods the weak tendon of his left shoulder. “What’s happened?”

“Can we just stay like this? For a little. Don’t ask why,” Bucky begs. He pushes up Steve’s right trouser leg and wraps his hand around Steve’s warm ankle. The heat Steve generates now would’ve been useful over the winters they’ve frozen together.

Steve clears his throat. “Okay. Same drill as we did after.” He stops. “I got it. Whatever you need.”

Bucky bites down on Steve’s clothed thigh. He’s embarrassed because of this little episode, more than he is confused. He’s bewildered at the change of emotions. The pattern of cockiness, disastrous, tragedy, victory and down right agony overwhelms his thoughts. He doesn’t know what to think. He doesn’t know what to do. There are people suffering as he did. He knows he suffered. He knows he’s suffering, but he doesn’t know where to start to put a stop to it. There are some days in which he doesn’t even recognize the distress.

With Steve’s hands on his body, he thinks of Miss. Lucero. She’s a dame back home. Or she was. She kept screaming in the silence of the night about freight trains falling off the rails and crashing into the buildings of New York. Her family sent her away. She got bound with her arms against her body, and got dragged away by two men in white lab coats. She was insane. The boys that she once touched called her whacky.

Breathing in deeply, Bucky makes the comparison between him and Miss. Lucero. Peggy Carter looks at him in the same way that Miss. Lucero’s family did to her before they sent her away.

“Bucky.” Steve hips shift.

Bucky’s head slides down the side of Steve’s thigh, but he whines and uses his grip of Steve’s ankle to pull himself towards the touch again. Steve’s hands on his shoulders stop him. “Stevie,” Bucky whispers, heartbroken.

“I’m still holding you. I’ve got you,” Steve reasons.

A heavy weighted arm wraps around Bucky’s back as he slides down onto the uncomfortable cot. His chin digs into the side of Steve’s thigh. His legs are beginning to hurt. They’re bent at the knee and angled towards Steve’s shins, whereas the rest of his body is pressed to the cot sideways. He looks up again, helpless. “Steve,” he brokenly says.

“This is the same thing,” Steve stresses, “I’m holding you. I’ve got you. I do.”

 _No, you don’t!_ Bucky wants to yell. He wants to harshly spit out _this is what you want. All those years, all those days, were you hated me holding you and always held your chin high away from my arms. You always wanted to be the one._ _The_ man, _you used to say_. _Now you’d prefer your drawing to come to life, even though it isn’t complete. You prefer only the very parts of your perfect woman, to me. Over me, your_ –

His bitter rage subdues with a spoken, “Oh.” He squeezes his hand experimentally from where he’s smoothed it across Steve’s leg, all the way to his surprisingly hard dick. Bucky looks up at Steve in amazement.

“You know how it’s been since the serum. Anything sets me off. Anything you do. Your breath was just so hot and it just kinda happened. I’ll think of that time we saw Mrs.—“

“Don’t think of that,” Bucky grouses as he moves upright onto his knees between Steve’s legs, the movement doing wonders for blood to rush to his own dick. He reaches out to fiddle with the utility belt. He fumbles with the elaborate buckles. His hands are still shaking. Why are his hands shaking?

Steve grabs his wrists, effectively stopping him. Bucky practically melts against him, his face nuzzling into Steve’s groin. His nose bumps against Steve’s dick, and he twitches against his face. Steve hisses, “This isn’t a good idea. You’re not all right, Bucky. I don’t want to do this when you’re like this.”

“It’s the only thing I want, please. Stevie, it’s the only thing. You know I like it,” Bucky reminds and leans back, parting his mouth in a way that he knows is obscene. He guides Steve’s hand to his mouth and sucks on finger into his mouth. Just the tip. It’s another little reminder. “It’ll make me feel better.”

Steve draws back his hand from Bucky’s mouth, but taps his upper lip with the wet finger. “Okay. Okay, yeah.” He grabbles for his belt.

Bucky watches as those fingers work the belt and reaches down to adjust himself in his pants. He then decides to pop open his trousers and let himself be comfortable. He doesn’t want to feel tense and uncomfortable when he’s doing something he desperately wants to enjoy. He’s only half hard, but he rubs the spot underneath his shaft that he absolutely cries about whenever Steve sucks there. Just there. He strokes his cock to the tip and back several times, ignoring the dry drag. He suppresses a loud gasp and nuzzles into Steve’s crotch as soon as Steve’s trousers are down halfway down his thighs. Bucky’s hand is still on his own dick, but it’s just amble pressure.

Steve smells musky and sweaty without clothing masking his natural smell.

“Steve,” he groans.

He gets shushed, “Not too loud.”

“Stevie,” he whispers, grinning manically.

Steve sweeps Bucky’s hair off his face, pressing it back.

“My mouth?” Bucky asks, but doesn’t await an answer as he presses open mouthed kisses along Steve’s hard, glorious dick through his pants. Steve’s stomach heaves inwards and quickly outwards with a deep draw of breath. His stomach rolls against Bucky’s forehead. Bucky ditches Steve’s prick and instead licks up the abdominal muscles, gripping hard onto Steve’s thigh and hip.

Steve’s hand fits around the back of Bucky’s neck, a reoccurring presence. Bucky hooks his right fingers underneath Steve’s waistband and pulls down just a little bit. Steve’s cockhead is already glistening, peeking out of the band, and Bucky looks up at Steve’s face with wide eyes as he puckers a kiss against it. The hold on his neck gets more fixated. Steve stifles a gasp. He swipes a small lick and then decides to wrap his lips around the head, sucking tight as he pulls the rest of Steve’s pants down.

His hands have finally stopped shaking.

He takes Steve’s cock halfway and pulls off. He breathes through his nose, making sure that his nostrils are clear. He swirls saliva around his mouth, retracts his right hand from his own erection and spits into his palm.

“Oh, God. Bucky,” Steve stutters, like that was more pleasurable than actually having a warm mouth on his dick.

He fists Steve’s cock and drags his touch up and down, and finishes off dampening the twitching prick. Steve’s cock slaps against his stomach when Bucky lets go. He licks his palm again, his fingertips pressing against his tongue, and reaches down to put his hand back against his own cock. He flicks his wrist twice and, handless, leans to take Steve’s cock in his mouth.

He takes Steve deep, but not as deep as he could back home. Steve’s gotten considerably bigger than he was and the first night Bucky let Steve take him, it stung so bad that they paused. All that breached Bucky’s hole was the tip of Steve’s cock and it was already too thick and they hadn’t prepared probably, too needy and exhilarated from being so close to losing one another. That night Bucky brought Steve to an orgasm by grinding just on his cockhead and 5 minutes later, when Steve was still hard, he sucked him down only half way and jerked him off on the skin didn’t reach his mouth. Steve came 4 times that night, and then twice the next morning. That weekend was mind-boggling.

This time he’s almost three quarters down onto Steve’s cock before his throat spasms. He lifts off, just a little, and gulps. He sucks tighter and moans loudly when Steve pulls at the hair on the back of Bucky’s head. Steve knows that pulling Bucky’s hair is as erotic it gets in Bucky’s mind. Bucky’s dick practically twitches.

Steve jerks his hips up, gasping, “Oh oh oh,” as the vibrations of the noises that Bucky emits spreads through his dick and to his balls and right to his stomach.

Bucky then just _stays_. He relaxes and vies for his jaw to go slack. He just stays put with Steve’s fucking dick in his mouth and looks up, again with wide, innocent eyes. Steve immediately pulls him off, looking worried.

“Bucky, you okay? You want to stop?” Steve hurriedly asks, his hands adoring the sides of Bucky’s face.

Bucky just smiles, nuzzling into Steve’s balls. Steve’s hands slip past his ears and into his hair again, automatically holding onto his hair.

“I’m getting a little tired, Rogers,” Bucky punctuates by sucking lightly, “Why don’t you do a little work for once, huh?”

“We need to talk about you calling me ‘Rogers’ while – while you’re doing that,” Steve breathlessly reprimands and gently pushes Bucky back so his ass is his heels. He keeps one hand on Bucky’s shoulder and moves the other to his cock, which Bucky frowns at.

“What’re you doing?”

Steve naively looks up. “Doing the work, you lazy dummy.”

“No, I meant like this,” Bucky says, amused and completely adoring.

He takes Steve’s cock in his mouth again, slack. He grabs Steve’s hips and attempts to make Steve thrust forward, but he’s too heavy. He glances up and hums encouragingly. He puts a hand on himself again, just a pronounced, stationary touch. He guides Steve’s hand with his free one to his hair again and covers the back of it and creates the motion of gripping. His scalp tenses, creating a legendary feeling. It tingles all the way down his spine.

And then Steve finally understands and starts to move. His cock draws further down Bucky’s throat, but not too much. The movement is slow and deliberate. Bucky doesn’t suck too hard, so Steve’s responsible to chase his own pleasure by thrusting. Steve starts to get impatient, if the huff is anything to go by, and he starts to pull Bucky up and down his cock by a soft grip on the back of his head. He grazes his teeth softly against Steve, just lightly. Steve gasps.

Bucky _likes_ this. He likes allowing Steve to use him like this. It’s only thing he wants to do where he doesn’t have control. Though he does. He does have control. He consented to this, he asked for it. It began with him. This is the one thing that he wants to do and that he _can_ do, at the same time.

Bucky splutters at one stage, tears arising in his eyes. Steve nearly stops, but Bucky just begins to suck. The suction on Steve’s cock alone makes Steve become completely still, moaning lightly. His hips thrust up again and Bucky’s nose is so close to brush against Steve’s skin, but without any warning Steve’s come starts to spill into Bucky’s mouth. His whole body shudders and rises, unintentionally letting his come hit the back of Bucky’s throat. Bucky brushes his knuckles against Steve’s balls and then grips tight on his shaft, slowly pulling off and swallowing. He squeezes and shakes his fist, working Steve off to completion.

Steve whimpers, “Bucky. Shit shit shit.”

Once he’s pulled off entirely he starts to lightly jerk Steve off. He leans close and a short, white ribbon hits the corner of his mouth. Steve lets out a low, “Ah.” Steve’s body shakes with the after shock, and Bucky seizes him in his mouth again, but Steve pulls him up so that they’re lying horizontally in the cot. Bucky’s neglected cock aches at the pressure against Steve’s bare hip.

Steve grabs Bucky’s ass and just hauls him closer. Bucky’s hands are trapped between his own body and Steve’s, so he just scratches at Steve’s naked, blushed chest. Steve meaninglessly mumbles and ruts Bucky erratically against the jut of his hip. Bucky’s incredibly hard and leaking, so it’s not going to take long. He doesn’t even register the roughness of the movement, because he’s too wet to even have the drag of his cock against Steve’s skin to end up being dry.

His tongue lags out and he licks Steve’s come from the corner of his bottom lip. Steve kisses his sweaty forehead and leaves his mouth there. The action’s too precious for the filthy way Steve’s hands are slipped under his pants and grasping his ass. His nails are digging nicely into the soft skin, making Bucky gasp and bury his face into where Steve’s arm meets his shoulder. He always prefers to breathe in Steve so he’s not lost for it.

“You love this,” Steve tells him, “You do.”

“So so so so so much,” Bucky grits out, choked on the satisfaction.

Steve then presses Bucky down harder, holds onto his cheeks tighter, and persistently shifts Bucky’s hips up and down Steve’s skin so that he’s no longer rutting but grinding down deep and slow. Bucky mewls and mindlessly bites down onto one of Steve’s pectorals, licking over his nipple. A few of Steve’s fingers slip between his cheeks, one pressing lightly against his hole. It’s arid, but it’s so good.

Bucky tucks his face between Steve’s miraculous tits, his large pectorals, and breathes in deeply with an open mouth, no doubt slobbering over Steve’s skin. The feeling in his lower stomach is insistent and the stationary grind against Steve is driving him insane. More insane than he already is without sex.

He whines into Steve’s chest, “I’m coming. I’m coming. Fuck. Stevie! Steve.”

Steve holds him down tighter, so that his cock is rubbing off onto his hip in small, calculated movements. “I’m,” he starts to say, but he loses his words and lets out a choked whimper as Steve tucks the tip of his finger into his hole. The suggestion of having anything inside him, the groove of Steve’s pectorals and the comforting lips pressed against his hairline all set him off.

His teeth dig into Steve’s flesh and his hips stutter against Steve’s tight hold. His stomach almost burns as he spills on it, between the both of them. He clenches his eyes shut and he feels his dick jolt and Steve drags him up higher along his body. Lips kiss the side of his open mouth. He leans down and claims Steve’s mouth with his. Steve’s tongue licks along his chin, where Steve’s come hit. Bucky’s hips jerk, his dick sensitive while it’s still pressed against Steve, but he just shifts against Steve and feels that Steve’s cock his hard, again. He’s about to reach down to get Steve off, but Steve groans and moves Bucky vertically in the cot, gently like a porcelain doll. Steve’s sketchbook digs into Bucky’s back.

“You’re exhausted,” Steve softly says, his hand a mild pressure against Bucky’s closed eyes to make sure they stay closed, “Sleep, for me. I’ll get something to clean you up. I’ll be back. I promise.”

“I,” Bucky starts to say, but Steve kisses his lips.

“Love you,” Steve whispers, barely audible beyond the loud shouts of the SSR getting rowdy for lunch.

Bucky opens his mouth, but the response lags as his whole body falls slack in both a post mission and a post orgasm daze. His breathing’s laboured with sleep before his mind completely shuts down.

 

 

 

He sleeps until nightfall. The sketchbook’s laid out on his chest, underneath his placed arm and in block letters a note addressed to him says: _I’M OUT TO SUPERVISE THE KIDS. THEY’RE BETTING ON INSECTS AGAIN._ A messy drawing of a cockroach with an elaborate moustache accompanies it. He smiles at it and pretends to twirl the twisted fuzz with his finger by tapping the page.

He heads out to report to Phillips about the mission, bleary eyed and hair sticking up in all directions. He tries to grease it down with some water out of his canteen, but it isn’t useful. He wears the sling, just incase Morita’s eyes are prying across the camp. He whistles in accordance to his own steps, but he stops when he hears a round of cheering from mess. It sounds like Dugan’s cockroach racing scam is a go.

Howard’s exiting HQ right as Bucky gets to it. Howard grins at him, slow and precise. “Evening. You enjoy your beauty sleep? I would hope so, because Steve nearly ripped my balls off. I call out your name with nothing but excitement to see my pal, and he marches up to me and threatens dismemberment of my jewels. All I wanted to know was whether or not you wanted your dress to be casual or elegant?”

“What?”

“You brought me back fabric,” Howard shrugs, “You want me to make you a dress. Doll you up for your man.”

Bucky rolls his eyes. “It’s immune to fire. Brought it back for you to do science stuff.”

“So you’re that hot on the dance floor, heh? Might take you for a spin one day.”

Bucky narrows his eyes.

Howard fiddles with his collar and then his eyes widen. “Hey, you searching for pity with that thing?” He gestures to the sling. 

“Now why would I do that?”

Howard hums and then squeezes Bucky’s cheek. “I suppose your sad blues are enough.” Bucky slaps his hand away. “What’s the go? Peggy can squish your cheeks as much as she wants for no reason, but I’m not even allowed to do it to comfort you?”

“Because, Stark,” her voice from the tent calls out, perfectly precise and clear, “Sergeant Barnes enjoys the feel of my manicure.”

Howard inspects his nails. “If that’s what I gotta do.”

“Don’t you have a turbo-something to build,” Peggy insists.

“Oh, yes, dear! I do.” He turns to Bucky, creating a small gap between two fingers. “Around this small. It’ll be a pain in my ass.”

“It for one of Dum Dum’s pets?” Bucky guesses. Howard miserably nods and then smugly smirks, because he doesn’t _really_ mind. He watches as Howard trots off, then ducks his head between the tent flaps. “Phillips, you home?”

Phillips doesn’t look up from where his head is bowed down towards his desk, but Bucky sees his bushy eyebrows bunch. He grumbles, “Am I on US soil, Barnes?”

“’Fraid not.” Bucky shakes his head. Phillips is sitting on a chair that’s legs are on a tent that’s set up in Italy.

Phillips sighs and looks up, face drawn and tired. “Then I’m not home.”

 _Someone’s grumpy_ , Peggy mouths with her bright red lips. She collects a couple of thick files off one of the side desks and tucks them to her chest. Her breasts push up at the motion and her eyes twinkle when she notices Bucky staring. She shifts the files to a singular arm and steps close. She smirks before squeezing Bucky’s cheek and scratching the side of his jaw lightly. His bottom lip plumps out.

“How did your mission go, James?” Peggy asks with a smile stretched across her lips. She’s unfairly pretty.

“Peachy. And yours, Marge?” He smiles back at her charmingly.

She gives him a dangerous look, eyes slanted and lips pursed. “Fairly well, James.” She looks back over her shoulder at Phillips. “I’ll have these translated by tomorrow morning. Meanwhile, be reasonable to your future companions this evening, Colonel Phillips.”

Phillips just grunts.

Peggy smirks at Bucky’s expense, kisses Bucky’s cheek, taps his injured shoulder and then sets off, her footsteps light. Bucky wipes his cheek, knowing that she’s probably left her signature. It’s better to do it before Phillips sees the lipstick mark and orders him to wipe it off to look presentable. That’ll be embarrassing.

“Sir?” Bucky sets his shoulders back.

The Colonel annoyingly sighs and looks at Bucky like he’s willing to send him home, right then and there. He finally ridicules, “You think trespassing a prison camp approved by the Red Cross is _peachy_?”

“The mission objective was to rescue Agent Sabuki and we did, sir.”

“That was the objective and you were to complete it by intercepting the truck. If that failed, you were supposed to fall back. The procedure should have been to radio in and return.”

Bucky blinks. He didn’t know that. Toro probably did and he probably neglected to tell Bucky that because of the drastic danger that Sabuki could’ve been in. He makes his hands into fists to stop himself from swearing at Toro. Fucking spy. No good for nothing but having people hold grudges against him piece of – “I decided to assault the camp when I was informed that Sabuki was transported by train there that morning. It was a chance that I took and it paid off.”

“You’re lucky that most of the Germans were preoccupied with Ghent, or else you all would’ve been captured or killed!” Phillips hollers.

“That’s the same risk as any other mission,” Bucky reasons.

“ _You_ made the risk greater. If you’d been gunned down I would’ve lost another good soldier because his stupid ass would’ve gone after you. Again,” Phillips grits through his teeth, wearing his infamous scowl. Bucky huffs a small laugh. Phillips begins to bring an end to the conversation, “Your unit’s already given me a run down on the specifics and I’m sure you’d like to watch the grand race before I shut it down.” He looks down, clearly dismissing Bucky.

Bucky clears his throat, but Phillips doesn’t look up. “Sir, I have two proposals.”

“And you haven’t thought them through long enough to have them on paper, do you?” Phillips sighs, “But I’m being reasonable right now, Peggy’s orders.”

Bucky inhales and uses his exhale to clearly say, “Firstly, I’m requesting permission to liberate the prisoners in Auschernberg. Secondly – “

“What?” Philips head snaps up.

“They’re bein’ mistreated and starved and – “

He gets interrupted again, “Well, the men sure aren’t being captured to get sent to luxurious hotels. You’re dismissed, Barnes.”

“They weren’t men anymore!” Bucky shouts, irritated that he’s not being taken seriously, “There were ghosts. Halfway dead. There were more than men there too! There were children, Colonel. There were children. More civvies than soldiers, probably. None of them were running. We blew a hole in the fence but they just stayed. If I can just go back and take them some place.” Phillips looks unimpressed. “Somewhere safe. Somewhere were they can’t get hurt anymore.”

Phillips raises his eyebrows and then leans back in his chair. He glances down at his typewriter and then back up at Bucky. “We can’t.”

“Bullshit!”

“For the time being we’re going to pointedly ignore it in favour of putting a stop to _Schmidt_. We’ll get around to it.”

Bucky settles down, because getting Schmidt means getting closer to knowing exactly what cocktail Zola gave him. He then reprimands himself, because it’s selfish. There are more lives at stake. “They’ll be as good as dead before we can make time for them. Time doesn’t exist here. You and I both know that.”

Phillips looks guilty. “Barnes, we’ll get them eventually. I don’t want you disobeying orders like Rogers or telling him about this, because then he’ll go against orders. He’s to remain focused on bringing justice to Doctor Erskine.”

“So you think that it’s something worth disobeying orders for,” Bucky says, twisting Phillips’ words to his own advantage even though he knows that there’s Doctor Erskine. And Erskine’s a valid reason for Steve to stay on task.

“I think that you and Rogers are stubborn soldiers that don’t have any consideration for the rules put in place for you to follow.”

Bucky manages a grin, but his cheeks lifting cause the corner of his eyes to sting. “He’s much more dramatic,” his tone turns solemn, “You know that I’m only here because Steve disobeyed orders. I’m only here, on my way to living again, because he disobeyed orders.”

“Barnes,” Phillips testily warns, voice low.

“If they’re not there afterwards. If all of them have joined the mass grave of bones I don’t know what I’ll do,” Bucky declares. He gulps, wetting his suddenly dry mouth. He pulls against his sling, though lightly so he doesn’t tear it.

“It won’t be your fault. It’ll be your CO’s,” Phillips refers to himself.

“Please,” Bucky starts to plead, “They don’t look like people no more.”

Phillips rubs his chin in a way that suggests he used to have a beard, one that he’d think on. He shakes his head. “Barnes, you’re – what’s your second proposal?”

Bucky grinds his teeth together, his jaw setting. “Just to suggest that having Agent Raymond in the SSR would be valuable. I was impressed by him.” And Bucky wants to keep an eye on the flames dancing on his fingers.

“Well, it’s not your lucky night. Raymond located to the Pacific with Agent Sabuki.” Phillips genuinely looks sorry.

“Oh,” Bucky breathes out.

“Go bet on a ‘roach, before I shock everyone and place one for you,” Phillips orders, picking up a file, getting up, spinning around his chair and sitting pointedly away from Bucky.

Bucky stands there for several seconds and then exits the tent mechanically. He automatically heads towards the creak he’d been doing his laundry in, because his coat is somewhere around that vicinity. It’s still hanging on a branch, he hopes. He also hopes it’s dry. There was no rain in Germany, but that doesn’t make it a solid reason for the weather to be clear further south. He see’s a bright light coming from mess and makes a quick detour towards it.

He spots Private Lorraine standing guard in front of the tent. She’s sitting in a chair that leans her back. Her legs are crossed. She’s wearing a contraption on her head that has a light bulb on it, which directs light to the novel open on her lap.

“You not watching the race?” Bucky calls out.

He doesn’t think he’s loud enough for Lorraine to hear, because she continues to read and sway her leg to an unheard rhythm. But then she points to a section on her page and looks up, the light automatically shining onto Bucky’s face. He squints and sees that she also squints, but it’s more on the lines of a frown than a reaction to harsh light. “Good lord, your hair’s a mess,” she sounds offended.

Smoothing his knotty hair back with his right hand, he gestures to the contraption on Lorraine’s head as much as the sling allows him to. “One of Howards?”

“Yes, a prototype,” she purrs, “Has it lit my locks on fire yet?”

“It’s only a matter of time.” A chorus of cheers arise from inside the tent, a loud _fuck you Dugan_! sounds. Tonight’s an odd night of fun and games. They’re on land that’s determined to be safe and enemy-free. There are no reasons as to why the soldiers can’t act loosely tonight. “Why aren’t you watching the race?” He asks Lorraine.

She gives him a flat look. “Watching cockroaches skedaddle is not something I consider entertainment. _Strong Poison_ , however.” She taps her paperback.

“Don’t let that thing give you any ideas.”

“The only idea it’s given me is to hunt down my own Lord Peter Wimsey.”

“What?”

“I’ll lend it to you after I’m finished if you promise not to get any bullets in it. Actually, I think Peggy’s got it next. Oh God, I need to tell _her_ not to get any bullets in it. She might use it for target practice.”

Bucky can’t help but feel warm as he watches her describe ways in which Peggy might defame the novel. He remembers when Steve came running to him when they were first in London. _Private Lorraine kissed me!_ He cried _, Peggy shot at me!_ Bucky laughed in a way he hadn’t since he got shipped to Europe. Before he met Lorraine he was expecting a doe eyed, a kisser of men that’s too eager to please, but instead he got to have a conversation about science fiction and extra terrestrial creatures with a clever blonde that admitted she drank a little too much because of nerves and accidentally become a sleaze all over Captain America! Oh dear! _But I’ve always been a sucker for strong, heroic men_.

“It doesn’t sound like my usual readin’. I’ll pass, but thank you,” Bucky enunciates.

“Come on! It’s got Lord Peter Wimsey and it’s a _mystery_ and it’s got Lord! Peter! Wimsey!” Lorraine chants, the light going off in all directions as she nods her head with passion.

Suddenly the entire mess hall erupts in swears directed at Dugan. There are a few threats spoken too. Bucky huffs, “I should go break it up.”

“No.” Lorraine dog ears her page and stands up, pulling down her shirt that’s stretched over her shoulders. “Rogers was supposed to control them,” she mutters. She parts the tents makeshift doors and begins to stomp inside. She screeches, silencing the room, “Phillips will be here any minute now if you hooligans keep this racket up. And the Lord knows that I’ll pass the buck straight to anyone but – “

“Buck!” Bucky hears Steve call out, the door’s just flapping closed and blocking Steve’s face from view in a split second.

“No, Captain Rogers! It’s a figure of speech. It means to blame someone else for this atrocity. Quit flappin’ your gums too loud or I’ll march right up to Phillips and tell him about this,” Lorraine hollers, but as it sounds like she’s going to settle down, she squeals, “It’s on me! It’s on me! Get it off!”

“Don’t clip any of ‘em!” Dugan yells.

“The one with the motor’s gone!” Howard shouts.

“Get it off!” Poor Lorraine’s shrieking, scared of the cockroach or the multiple cockroaches that have crawled onto her.

The tent’s door flap open and Steve steps out with red cheeks and frazzled hair. He takes a large step out, grabs Bucky, and says, “Get in here, punk.”

Bucky stumbles away from Steve’s grip. “Can’t. I’ve got to get my coat. Hung it out by the creak to dry.”

“Don’t need it. I’ll keep you warm,” Steve murmurs, stepping out, and immediately slings his arm around Bucky’s shoulders, starting from the good one and letting his hand rest softly on the left. He mutters into Bucky’s ear, “Dum Dum’s about to get slugged.”

He presses into the side of Steve’s large body, but he barely fits. He has to slouch to fit underneath Steve’s arm, so he does just so. He lifts his right arm and grabs Steve’s hand that’s resting down Bucky’s shoulder. This makes the fixture much sturdier. Steve’s wearing a brown shirt, with a tan tie and even browner trousers.

Bucky smiles small. “You’re not being a good mum and stepping in, I see.”

“I should step away before I get tempted to then… Get you warm instead, huh?”

Bucky’s spine shudders at Steve’s sultry tone.

“You chilly?” Steve doesn’t wait for any answer before pulling Bucky closer.

Bucky attempts to push Steve away and he manages to separate them a little, but Steve keeps a grip on the back of his shirt. “You fat-head,” Bucky says endearingly, “Don’t pin being cold on me when you’re the one that – “

“I don’t get cold no more,” Steve reminds and they have a moment of silence for the complaints that Steve would whimper at night in the times of desperation. They didn’t happen often and now they won’t be happening at all. Bucky lets Steve tuck him under his arm again. They start to mindlessly walk towards their own tent, Steve practically dragging Bucky there by his feet.

“Hey,” Steve says softly, still audible beyond the outbursts coming from behind them. It sounds like Lorraine has fainted or is about to. “Monty told me the mission was tough. Not tough like hard to complete or anythin’, but tough like seeing nasty things. Things that might’ve brought up a few things for you.”

Bucky gulps and he tucks his head underneath Steve’s arm, avoiding his gaze and seeking the warmth. “They were just prisoners. They’ll be released after the war.”

“That’s it?”

“Phillips told me the camp’s approved by the Red Cross, which means they send rations over. I just think that they’re on slabs like me, is all. They’re not.” It’s true. Instead of burning internally they’re burning externally.

Steve ushers Bucky into their tent with a worried gaze. He doesn’t come inside. “I’ll go get your coat if you want it so much, you doll. Be right back.” He runs in the direction of the garment.

Bucky quickly wipes at his eyes and smoothes his hair back again. He kicks off his boots and his shirt, just leaving him in his undershirt. He curls in the space between the two cots, because the floor gives him more access to Steve without having them both try and fit uncomfortably into one cot. The floor raises fewer questions than sharing the same cot if they’re caught, anyway. He shouts a cry into the crook of his arm.

Steve comes back half a minute later, not even breathless, with Bucky’s coat over one shoulder. He clicks his tongue at Bucky. Bucky turns onto his back and spits out, “What?” He’s agitated and ready to fight, but the emotion subdues as soon as he sniffles.

“Oh, Buck,” Steve sighs and begins to unbutton his shirt. He does a quick work of it with his sturdy fingers. He shifts Bucky’s coat in his hand and chucks his shirt on Bucky’s empty coat.

He carefully steps over Bucky on the ground and climbs into his own cot. But before he lays down he bends over and surprisingly pulls Bucky on top of him.

“What are you – “

Steve shushes him. “I can hear someone coming a mile away. We’re safe.” He shifts Bucky to the side and Bucky immediately curls up against him. Their bodies are too hot together, but Bucky knows that he’ll sleep nicely even after a day of doing so already. “This is okay, right?”

He nods against Steve’s chest and clenches his eyes shut.

“You’re not,” Steve admits for him, exhaling shakily, “but I know you don’t like talking ‘bout it. It drives me crazy, but it’s less crazy than what you drive me anyway so I can ignore it. You always drive me crazy.”

Bucky’s emotions have become raw and readable to Steve, but luckily his thoughts aren’t.

“I’m your best guy,” Bucky shyly whispers.

Steve scratches Bucky’s scalp. “You are.” He then wraps the coat around Bucky’s back, mixing the bloodstain and the metallic smell of the gunpowder that sprays on the navy fabric with every shot Bucky takes.

“No,” Bucky hushes and pulls the coat down to the floor. He fits one leg Steve’s and the other under Steve’s side. “All we need.”

Steve rests a hand on Bucky’s lower back, beneath his thin undershirt.

 

 

 

 

 

Seven months later, when Bucky is staring down the icy journey to death, he remembers when he rubbed Steve’s back as the little guy threw up in Coney Island.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Find me on tumblr: foulrescent.tumblr.com 
> 
> OR twitter @xereigns
> 
> Auschernberg, by the way, is a fake name taken from Captain America and Bucky #623 to represent a concentration camp. Bucky and Toro actually infiltrate that camp together to save a SSR spy when their partners are on another mission. Other things taken from the comics are - Toro, who's a Human Torch and fought alongside Bucky; Gwenny, who's Golden Woman and also fought alongside Bucky; Victoria Murdock, who has no relation to Matt Murdock, is the Asbestos Lady and has something a little personal against Jim Hammond, the original Human Torch. Things were personally left unexplained with Toro, because... reasons. 
> 
> THANK YOU FOR READING. hugs

**Author's Note:**

> foulrescent.tumblr.com


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